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Building Plans for 
Poultry men 



and 



Practical M^ethods of Poultry Raising 




— . — .—.4. 



■ BUILDING PLANS 
FOR POULTRYMEN 

And Practical Methods of Poultry Raising 



H. V. TORMOHLEN, Editor 



1 

I 

4. — ,. 



Poultry Breeders Publishing Co. 

Waverly, Iowa 






fife 



Cojjy right by 

Poullry Breeders' Publisliiny Company 

1920 



©CU570799 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



Starting Right in the Poultry Business. 

Each year finds many new recruits in the poultry industry. 
The poultry journal solicitor with his aggressive friendly way 
meets you at the county fair or poultry show and asks you point 
blank. "Do you raise chickens?" You admit that you were 
raised on the farm and although you do not happen to be so 
fortunate as to be raising fowls now you certainly have a "feel- 
ing" that way. Accordingly you suljscribe for the journal on 
the strength that it will tell you all about how to raise poultry. 

But many of the poultry journals have too much of the pro- 
fessional air about them and the person starting with fowls 
finds himself in deep water as far as understanding what a great 
many articles are about. Too many of us forget the time we 
got our first setting of eggs and just how eageily v^'e read every 
word we could find on how to rear chicks, feed, make coops and 
all the varied problems of poultry keeping. 

I did, like many of you have just done, answered an adver- 
tisement of one of the breeders claiming to have 57 varieties 
of land and water fowls. We got the immense catalog and 
then could hardly sleep nights thinking what an immense farm 
that breeder must have and if we only had it we would be in 
paradise, as far as this world is concerned. Somehow we are 
all after something cheap and at bargain prices. These little 
one inch ads scattered about in the periodicals and strangely 
quite scarce in the poultry journals have an enticing way about 
them. 

The beginner who subscribes for a good poultry journal and 
commences to get in touch with the breeders advertising in 
them is on the right track. The poultry journals carry adver- 
tising for a livelihood and do not be afraid, Mr. Beginner, to 
place your order for stock or eggs with any of them for the 
poultry journal cannot aft'ord to keep scoundrel advertisers more 
than a month. Therefore you are protected and you need have 
no hesitancy in placing your order with breeders who are mak- 
ing a life study and specialty out of their variety. These are 
the breeders to tie to. They are giving their individual at- 
tention to their variety and are anxious to help you get started 
right. Do not be taken in by ads found in the cheap magazines 
and fai-m papers. You may get value received and you may not. 

Decide upon the variety you like best and then go at it in 
earnest. Do not make the mistake of trying out a half-dozen 
varieties to see which is best. You will know little more about 
it at the end of a year or two than you know now. Decide upon 
one of the well advertised varieties for there is certainly merit 
in a variety that is widely advertised. Decide whether you want 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



to breed for meat or eggs. Also whether for fancy or utility or 
a combination of both. Make up your mind for all time to come 
to stick to it. Making a success with poultry is principally 
sticking to it and profiting by your own experience. If you want 
to breed for meat choose one of the larger varieties. If your 
tastes I'un to lots of eggs take up one of the lighter egg breeds 
for they will produce more eggs as a rule and on less feed per 
egg than any of the heavier varieties. 

The next thing to decide is how much you can afford to put 
into getting stock or eggs this fli'st season. Make up your mind 
you are going in to win financially and as to quality of your 
stock. Therefore do not be misled into getting cheap stock your- 
self, into believing you will buy cheap stock and then breed up 
for how can you, a person with no experience in breeding poul- 
try, make much headway in the next five years breeding up your 
cheap flock to a better flock. Answer the advertisements of 
breeders advertising stock of the variety you have chosen and 
ask them frankly what they would advise you as a beginner 
to do. All of them will tell you that the best is none too good 
and that the best pays in the end while the beginner who starts 
with the cheapest stock or eggs he can find with the idea of 
breeding up, finds after a few years dear experience that he 
must dispose of all his stock and start all over with stock sever- 
al grades higher than he has. Too many beginners scan the 
advertisements for the cheapest stock or eggs they can find 
offered. The only one I ever knew who made a success at this 
was a red-headed boy friend of mine who became interested in 
my thorobreds and decided to embark himself in fowls. He de- 
cided upon White Leghorns but had only 50 cents. I loaned 
him 50 cents until cherry picking time and he found an adver- 
tisement of 25 eggs for $1. He hatched 23 chicks and raised 
21 of the lot and in the fall sold a trio for $10. That was a 
pretty good investment. But even this boy saw he must have 
better quality and to make a success he had to keep this cheap 
blood out of his flock with the care as if it were a contagious 
disease for whenever he introduced it into the better fowls he 
subsequently got, he found he had trouble with quality. 

Make it your policy to go slow and get the best. Rather 
buy one setting of $5 eggs than 100 eggs for $5 for the chicks 
from the $5 setting eggs will likely be worth more than a dozen 
raised from the $5 per 100 eggs. Often you can raise 10 or more 
chicks from a single setting but do not count the money lost 
if you succeed in saving one chick for nine out of ten chances 
he will be worth more than you paid for the setting of eggs. 

If you have a little back yard you have all taht is 
necessary. I started with a back yaid. without a sign 
of a fence or coop. I made the mistake of starting with a 
cheap incubator and brooder. The brooder burned up with all 
the chicks after the second hatch but I got valuable experience. 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



Buy a good incubator or brooder or what is better for the be- 
ginner hatch your first year or two eggs with hens. Get ac- 
quainted with nature's way. You can buy setting hens at this 
time of the year most anywhere for 50c to $1 each. Get your 
hen and make a nice nest in an empty barrel in the back yard. 
Put a few glass eggs under her and darken the front and leave 
her 24 hours. Order your eggs for you will have little trouble 
getting the hen to stick to business. Face the barrel to a little 
run if possible. Keep the hen quiet. Furnish her with plenty 
of corn and wheat and water and grit. See that she returns to 
the nest the first few days and by the time the eggs arrive 
she- will be attending to her nest without coaxing. Nothing 
beats a barrel for setting a hen in. It is roomy and the hen 
walks into the nest instead of jumping dowTi into the nest and 
breaking the eggs as so many do when a box is provided. The 
barrel out on the ground is just near enough mother earth to 
make an ideal place just as nature would have it should you find 
the jungle fowl with her nest built in a thicket or underbrush 
in the wild. 

Keep the hen dusted with a good lice powder twice during 
the period of incubation and a protection of a few boards up in 
front of the barrel while she is on the nest, especially at night 
to guard against possible accident thru a cat or dog or rat 
bothering the nest and you will have splendid success with the 
eggs. If you want to raise sevei'al chicks the first season a good 
plan is to set two or more hens at one time and then reset one 
hen. A hen fed and cared for well can easily incubate two 
clutches of eggs without any harm or cruelty to the hen and 
the other hen can raise the first lot of chicks. I have had hens 
weigh more at the end of six weeks than they did at the start 
simply because I gave them proper feed and care. 



Raising Poultry as A Side Line. 

To the suburbanite and small town dweller the raising of 
poultry offers many wholesome, enjoyable hours of outdoor em- 
ployment during the year if indulged in merely as a side line 
if fowls are kept only for the purpose of furnishing the table 
with choice spring fries and broilers and eggs the entire year. 

The advantages to the business man in raising poultry in the 
few feet of back lot or on the half acre at the suburban home 
are many. There is no employment that offers to the person 
who is closely confined by office work a greater amount of light 
physical exercise, or a more pleasant means of recreation than 
the culture of thorobred poultry in a limited way. 

To the person who can interest himself in this industry, and 
who can devote spare time to it with the idea of gaining not 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



only physical exercise, but of acquiring a knowledge of the busi- 
ness that will enable him to excel as a fancier, there is a fasci- 
nation about the work that increases as experience is gained. 
The tilling of the soil for the garden of flowers or vegetables is 
an enjoyable recreation but the garden plot lasts only for a few 
weeks at the most and during that time very strenuous work 
it is indeed, while the rest of the year — at the very time when 
indoor workers need fresh air most — the garden cultivates habits 
of cozy fire-side physical idleness. Our friends, the chickens, 
require attention each and every day of the year and so we are 
forced to get out and stir up the straw litter in the scratching 
shed with the thermometer about the zero mark on those cold 
winter mornings th3 same as in July. Thus the habit of getting 
out and exercising in the cold fresh morning air is formed and — 
good habits if formed in town invariably insures health and 
happiness. 

It is said that a well balanced variety of tasks makes one 
task a recreation for the other and to come away from the city 
and office with its cares and intense mental exertion and hurry 
out to the poultry headquarters and attend to a nice flock of 
busy but care free hens makes life take on a different aspect and 
the close association with nature relieves the pessimistic and 
bewildered mind in a very short time. Poultry raising as an 
occupation might grow monotonous in a veiy short time to the 
office man with a brain trained and accustomed to grasp big 
problems and solve them but as a diversion from the daily 
grind and routine of life, poultry raising forms an excellent 
safety valve for the strenuous brain worker. 

Starting in to raise poultry may be done on a very small 
scale or on a more elaborate scale if much experience in the 
rearing of poultry has previously been acquired. Starting 
with a couple of old "biddies" and two dozen chicks is much 
more satisfactory even to those who have had experience for be 
it remembered that in this day and age of the world chickens 
cannot be raised like we used to see our grandmothers back on 
the farm raise them and even if we know a great deal about it 
because of being reared on the farm or spending the summers 
at grandmother's we will encounter difficulties in raising chicks 
on back lots that we never heard of before. 

The different breeds of thorobred poultry today are so far 
superior to mongrel stock for the different purposes for which 
they were developed that it is nothing short of folly to raise 
anything but thorobred stock. Your individual tastes will have 
much to do in selecting a breed but do not be unduly influenced 
by the popular opinions of the day. Tomorrow the fad will be 
over and you will be wanting to change breeds for the new ar- 
rival in popular favor which is declared to be the "greatest 
layer and best broiler ever." 

Eggs are practically indispensible in the modern kitchen 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



and they are used every day in the week while a dressed fowl 
is used probably once a week. Nice fresh eggs seem to be the 
hardest to get on the market the year round while seldom, if 
ever, is a nice carcass hard to procure. For this reason I would 
deem it the better plan to keep fowls primarily for eggs and 
secondarily for meat. Then again where the young birds must 
be continually confined their carcasses when ready to fry, will 
have cost more for feed than if purchased on the market as the 
broiler man on the farm can raise and market fowls much cheap- 
er on his acres than the city man can on the back lot where he 
must purchase every morsel of feed. 

But eggs can be produced with about one half the market 
price of eggs from a good laying strain of hens when confined 
in very limited city quarters the year thru.. 

There is no best breed or variety. But there are better 
strains of layers among the different varieties. One Plymouth 
Rock will lay better than another because it has come from a 
long line of ancestors which have been bred for egg production. 

Senator Mooney of Mississippi recently asked an old colored 
man what breed of chickens he considered the best and he re- 
plied, "Marsa Mooney, all breeds of chickens has de merits, for 
instance the white ones am de easiest to find after dark and de 
black ones am the easiest to hide after you once gits em." 

I chose BrowTi Leghorns because I had known from a 
small boy up that they were noted layers of white eggs. I had 
seen some flocks of white birds in town and they always pre- 
sented a dirty appearance. These were the reasons why I de- 
cided on the Brown Leghorns but your way of looking at it might 
lead you to an entirely different conclusion and you might decide 
on the Minorcas, the Houdans, the Anconas, or the Rhode Island 
Reds. Then again as a student of colois as found in nature > 
found the Brown Leghorns presented the deepest mysteries and 
difficulties in combining the shades of any of the Gallinaceous 
tribes. I found it very hard to produce show woi'thy specimens 
at first and for several seasons my efforts proved a failure in 
that at least I was unable to produce as good specimens as the 
parent stock itself. But after delving in nature's laws I finally 
worked out the principles as to how to mate to make colors re- 
produce themselves. Indeed, it was such a fascinating study 
that every leaf and flower and painting that came under my 
eye was observed closely for some hidden combination or prin- 
cipal in color combinations. 

To start in the spring in raising fowls it would be desirable 
to purchase baby chicks or eggs from some reliable breeder and 
place them under a setting hen which you have bargained for 
from some neighbor who keeps mongrel hens or some farmer 
friend. Setting hens should be purchased for not over $1.00 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



apiece and they can be sold for 75 cents when the chicks are 
raised. The chicks can be kept in a small coop until nearly- 
grown and in the fall a poultry house can be built. 



How to Make A Piano Box House. 

A great many people who raise poultry, either on a large 
or a small scale, will find the plans for a cheap poultry house 
given here are just the thing for which they have been looking. 
They will appeal especially to the city man who can keep but five 
or six hens and on rented property possibly, and alike to the 
large poultry raiser for colony houses to be moved about the 
farm in the green fields during the summer. There are hundreds 
of these colony houses in use on the largest poultry farms in 
the country. 

The ease with which the house can be built commends it to 
those who are not skilled carpenters and who do not have 
the time to build an elaborate house. The house is modeled 
on the most approved lines of poultry house construction, being 
a combination of the open and canvas front types, and having 
the shelf dropping board under the roost, which is along the 

back wall to catch all the 
droppmgs while the fowls are 
on the roost during the night. 
If a small breeding pen is 
kept in the house the space 
beneath the dropping board 
is utilized for nests and the 
floor, which is covered with 
several inches of straw, for 
scratching. 

Piano boxes for different 
makes of pianos differ slight- 
ly in size. The ordinary box 
is from five feet to six feet 
in height by five or a little 
over long, the back generally 
being square. They are two 
and a half to two and three- 
quarters feet wide at the 
bottom. 

After getting two piano 
boxes of the same dimensions 
we remove the backs and tops 
shown in the illustration. The 
backs are then spread out as 
T,„„ ^;„„^ K„^„ f +u • -^i, shown and sawed in the por- 

Iwo piano boxes of the same size, with .• • • i. i i n t'^^ 

tops and lids removed, are required for K^^ns micated by the arrOWed 
the house. lines. 






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BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



The one back is sawed into halves while the other is sawed 
into halves and one of these halves halved again. These quar- 
ters form the topmost part of the roof with an additional six 
or eight inch board. 

The second half numbered 3 forms the floor between the 
two boxes. Half of number four fits in at the back between 
the two boxes while number five is used for the dropping board. 
All the additional lumber required for the house are the tw^o by 









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The two backs of the boxes are cut as shown by the arrow lines in 
above illustration. The method is described in full in accompanying 

article. 







'?^m^kj-Tr-^^ 



Completed piano box poultry house 



10 BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



fours under the floor and for the roof and one by fours for the 
door. No glass windows are required for the house as the light 
is admitted thru the open front door. The door is merely cov- 
ered with wire netting. During a very cold winter night a can- 
vas curtain is hung over the wire netting and fastened onto 
buttons on the frame of the door. As the whole house is cov- 
ered with tarred paper or some good roofing paper it is sur- 
prising how comfortable and warm the fowls keep in this style 
of house and yet with the canvas off the front of the door almost 
every day in the year. Only about three months of the year 
need the canvas be used in the central states even at night, as 
the more fresh air the better after the fowls become accustomed 
to this mode of housing. The general tone and health of the flock 
is greatly benefited by the fresh air type of house. 

These houses make excellent ones in which to keep an out- 
door brooder early in the season and they may be used at every 
stage of the work of poultry raising. 



Some Pitfalls in the Way of a Beginner. 

I remember as if it were yesterday my first season's work 
with poultry^ — my first real earnest determined effort at be- 
ing a poultryman. altho I had worked with poultry some each 
year since a small boy, when as a chap of three I had a pair of 
bantams given me and with them the first germs Galli which 
later developed into a bad case of "hen fever." I can remember 
each diflficulty and obstacle which I had to overcome and can still 
see those mountains which I had to cross altho at the time I was 
often so discouraged and disheartened that I ottcn thot i wnuki 
give up. I can therefore appreciate the position of every ama- 
teur at the poultry business as I have been all along the road 
and know the trials and troubles and know just how big some 
of the obstacles look to you while in a year or two you will look 
back and have to take a magnifying glass to find them. 

Remember the poultry business never was, is not now nor 
ever will be all peaches and cream, but also remember that thr> 
longer you stay in the game the easier it is to play it and of 
course, the fewer the obstacles, the more enjoyment and profit. 

After careful observation I am convinced that infant mor- 
tality with new born poultry enthusiasts is just about as great 
as it is with infants. The chances for quitting the business are 
in about the same proportions as the death rate in infants, if 
not greater. Like infants, if the amateur poulterer lives his 
babyhood of two, three and five years out without deceasing in 
any respect his enthusiasm and love for the fancy, he can be 
counted on to live to a ripe old age as a fancier. It is a matter 
of common knowledge among poultymen that the great ma- 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 11 



jority of people quit the chicken game quite at the end of the 
first, second, or third year. Therefore, take heart and have 
courage, you who have newly started raising poultry and look 
forward to the better days ahead, if you feel it is all one grand 
round of troubles. If, tho, you are so enthusiastic at this stage 
of the game to feel like you never would quit and have read 
this article to this point, read it thru if you care to, but if not, 
lay it aside carefully where you can turn to it hastily a little 
later when a "fit of the blues" comes over you. 

Taking up some of the common every-day troubles of the 
new beginner, we will take them in their order with the season. 

Probably some are having trouble in keeping their parent 
stock in the pink of condition. To be in good condition and 
health the fowls must be fed right, housed right and not crowd- 
ed. If your fowls seem out of condition, give them more park 
and house room. Give plenty of sunshine and fresh air and 
water. If you are having trouble in getting fertile eggs or are 
getting soft shelled eggs, your troubles come under this same 
general head. Keep a dry mash before your fowls all the time, 
composed of three parts ground corn, two parts bran, two parts 
middlings, two parts gluten feed, and one part beef scraps. Keep 
grit, oyster shell and charcoal before them and with the dry 
mash, fresh water, dry litter to scratch in, your breeding stock 
will take on more life, lay better and the eggs be more fertile. 
If possible, get them out on the grass whenever you can. 

If you have trouble in getting the hens to set after chang- 
ing them from one nest to another, change them after dark af- 
ter this and have the new nest dark and so the hen can be in- 
closed in it. Place your eggs under her the second day and watch 
when she leaves the nest for a week until she becomes accustom- 
ed to returning. If laying hens eat eggs, make all nests so dark 
that the fowls cannot see the eggs after getting in the nest. 
If the setting hens begin to break eggs, you have built the 
nest wrong, and she breaks the eggs when she jumps down on 
the nest when returning. Close the nest on top and have the 
entrance on the side where the hen can walk right in on the 
eggs. When you find the eggs smeared up with a broken egg, 
wash them ofl" in luke warm water, change the nesting and 
they will be little worse for the wear. 

Keep the setting hens free from lice by dusting with lice 
powder often. Do not grease the setting hen. Feed principally 
whole corn and wheat to the setting hens with plenty of grit 
and water and they will hold out in fine flesh. 

In operating the incubator, follow the directions carefully. 
If you have lost the directions, write for more. Keep the lamp 
clean by wiping carefully after filling each time and you will 
not notice the oil fumes. 

If you have had trouble with the chicks sticking in the 
shell spread a piece of cheese cloth over the eggs twice a day 



12 BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



for the last Ave days which has been wrung out in warm water. 

If the chicks die in the shell get more fresh air to the 
eggs and keep ventilators wider open during next hatch. 

After the hatch, keep the chicks under hen or in incubator 
first twenty-four or thirty-six hours. This is much more im- 
portant than feeding them. 

After putting them in the brooder be sure to keep them 
from chilling the first week especially. Chilling means bowel 
trouble, white diarrhea, lack of life and loss of many. 

Leg weakness is caused by warm brooder floors and crowding. 
If your chicks show general debility they have been overfed or 
are bothered with lice. 

To get best results with small chicks, feed a variety of 
food. Keep plenty of grit and clean water before them. Also 
plenty of bran. Then by feeding chick feed in the litter and an 
occasional feed of stale bread, moistened with milk, hard boiled 
eggs, lettuce leaves, raw apples, the chicks will lack for nothing 
and will do well. I have found it a safe rule when the chicks 
are not doing well on the feed and I am in doubt as to the 
trouble, to feed a variety. 

The chicks should be treated with carbolated vaseline, salty 
grease or grease with little kerosene added for head lice every 
two weeks for eight weeks. Head lice kill more chicks than the 
general poultry public is aware of. 

Clean the brooder often. Whitewash all coops in which 
hens and chicks are kept. Do not try to make one hen do the 
work of three by giving her thirty chicks to brood. She will 
make a failure of it until they die oflF, until only about eighteen 
or twenty remain, if that many. 

Where little chicks pick each others combs and toes and 
seem to have a craving for blood, get them out in the open 
and on grass runs and feed milk or beef scraps. Isolate the ones 
that have been picked so they will not be injured farther and to 
keep the rest from going farther with the habit. 

In case of gapes, a parisitical disease, where the chicks 
stand around and seem to gasp for breath, moisten the throat 
with turpentine, use a gape worm extractor, or place chicks in 
a box and sift some air slaked lime over their heads until they 
sneeze or gasp for breath and shake their heads violently when 
the worm will be dislodged and sneezed out. 

White diarrhea is a disease of small chicks that has caused 
many a poultryman to cjuit the business. Volumes have been 
wi'itten on it. Only the last two or three years have our agri- 
cultural colleges found the cause and remedy after it has once 
gotten a stai't in the flock. The only word we will give it here 
is to say that you will never be bothered with it if the parent 
stock is kept in large runs and fed and cared for properly. If 
the chicks have it the disease was transmitted thru the egg to 
the chick. Some have advocated washing the eggs to be incu- 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 13 



bated in a weak solution of alcohol to free the eggs from the 
germs. There are several good remedies on the market to 
combat the disease in the chicks. Home remedies will be of 
little use. Heroic efforts must be made to save a flock of little 
chicks after they once have become incubated with the disease. 
It is a significant fact that brooder chicks are much more sus- 
ceptible to it than hen brooder chicks. 

By all means make it your policy, wh^n starting in with poul- 
try to raise a few well than to raise a whole lot and make a 
miserable failure before the summer is half over. The 
great mistake made by all beginners is that they attempt 
too much. On the average village or city lot, fifteen to thirty 
chicks is the greatest of plenty. Think of the town dweller on 
a lot 50x60 getting the "chicken fever" and attempting to raise 
two hundred chicks to maturity on that small space. It will 
keep one man busy digging graves during June and July when 
nature is doing her best to right the trouble by killing off 90 
per cent to give the 10 per cent a chance to live.. 

Among my friends and acquaintances each season I number 
two or three who have the "chicken fever" and attempt too much 
and are down and out before the end of the year. Consider your- 
self fortunate then if you read these lines and profit by them. 

I will mention only one of these failures in passing as they 
are all similar except in setting. My young friend, newly mar- 
ried, came to me for advice about raising chickens on his back 
lot. Thought it would be profitable recreation and furnish the 
family table with fresh eggs and broilers. Wanted a thorobred, 
as he wanted to have a nice looking flock and birds that he could 
show. The first season he raised thirty-five on the back lot. 
Fine success, hardly a one dying, due to the fact that the lot 
had not had chickens on it for some time. By fall he had become 
so infatuated with his flock that he wanted to keep the majority 
over for breeders, having visions of a great poultry farm by 
this time and must save every one of these to make the nucleus 
for the start of his poultry farm. I tried to dissuade him from 
such a hasty move when he came to me for advice, but he 
insisted that he was tired of town life and was planning on 
leading the back-to-nature life and in a year or eighteen months 
at the most would be on the farm. Asked for poultry house 
plans, but after reading a description of the two best, had an 
idea of his own and built one according to his own idea which 
would beat any yet. Before the winter was over a great num- 
ber of his fowls had the roup in this house, which was away too 
small by this time for the growing youngsters. In the spring 
bought a ten dollar prize winning cockerel, a fine strong fellow. 
Only got three chicks out of seven settings of eggs, set under 
hens, and not a chick out of 100 eggs in the incubator, all 
caused by the lack of vitality and crowding of hens. Cock- 
erel proved all right on other hens. Before the end of the sec- 



14 BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



ond summer he wanted to sell me his $40 house for $20 and 
his fowls for a song, as he was greatly disgusted with the 
"chicken business." and his whole trouble was in attempting too 
much, overcrowding, and failure to pay any attention to advice 
and warning of those who had raised fowls for years. Many 
of the trying obstacles that confront the novice may be obliter- 
ated by putting into practice the teaching of this article. 



Essential Requirements of A Poultry House. 

From Pennsylvania State College Circular No. 39. 

The essential requirements of a poultry house are comfort 
for the hens and convenience for the attendant. It should be 
economical in construction, cheerful, well ventilated and sani- 
tary. 

Location — In choosing a location for a poultry house, the 
following f acto)'s should be considered : 

(a) A southern or southeastern exposure is best because 
it insures the largest amount of sunlight during cold weather. 
The house will be more cheerful and the fowls will get out 
earlier in the spring. 

(b) Shelter. While sunlight is essential, the poultry build- 
ing should be sheltered from the intense heat of the sun during 
the hot months and from the full force of prevailing winds. If 
possible, use of natural shelter such as trees, an orchard, a 
hill, or a bam. 

(c) Water Drainage. The poultry house must be dry. 
Select a location that provides natural water drainage. 

(d) Air Drainage. Air drainage is as important as water 
drainage. Avoid a location that allows cold, damp air to settle 
around the poultry building. 

(e) Convenience. Locate the poultry house in as con- 
venient a place as is consistent with the requirements of ex- 
posure, shelter and drainage. The poultry building should be 
easily reached from the house and other farm buildings. 

Portable or Permanent House. A portable colony house 
should always be used for chicks and growing stock. " It may 
also be advantageously used for housing the breeding stock. 
When a large flock is kept for egg production a large perma- 
nent house will be most economical. Unless two large yards 
can be provided for the permanent house, the portable colony 
houses will give better results. Poultry should not be kept 
in the same location more than two years in succession. 

Size. An 8x12 ft. colony will comfortably house 25 fowls. 
Equipped Avith four portable hovers or a colony brooder heater, 
it will care for 150 to 200 chicks from the time they are hatched 
until maturity. For laying hens, four square feet of floor space 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 15 



should be provided for each fowl. For egg production, hens 
may be profitably housed in flocks of 100 to 500. 

Yards. The close yarding of fowls in long, narrow yards is 
to be avoided as much as possible. Small yards are difficult to 
till, increase the cost of equipment, increase the labor of caring 
for the fowls, and tend to make the latter restless and discon- 
tented. Give the fowls the free range of a large field. Let 
them run in the orchard, pasture or corn field. If yards must 
be used, provide a double yarding system. One yard can be 
tilled and sown to grass or clover for pasture while the fowls 
occupy the other. This is necessary in order to avoid disease 
and to provide an economical supply of green food. 

Type of House. Some form of fresh air house should be 
used for poultry of all ages. Poultry will thrive in rather cold 
houses if they are dry and provide an abundant supply of fresh 
air without drafts. Fresh air is of more importance than 
warmth. 

Floor. The essentials of a good floor are a hard surface, 
smooth enough to be easily cleaned, dryness, durability, econo- 
my construction and warmth. It should be rat proof. A com- 
mon cause of dampness in a poultry house is a poor floor. 

The three most common floors are earthen, board and 
cement. 

Earthen or Dirt Floor. Altho it has a low initial cost, it is 
liable to be damp and hard to clean. It harbors mice and rats 
and must be replaced every year. The final cost is high because 
of labor required to keep it clean. 

Board Floor. This is best for a portable house; it is sani- 
tary, fairly inexpensive, durable and may be made rat proof 
by lining underneath with fine mesh wire. 

Cement Floor. This is the best for a permanent house, as 
it is rat proof, easily cleaned and very durable. It is liable 
to be cold, however, and is more expensive than other types. 

Walls. The walls should provide warmth, dryness and 
strength for the house. They should be cheap, durable and easy 
to clean and disinfect. They should be high enough in front 
to admit sunlight to the back part of house. A height of 4* 
to 5 feet is sufficient for the rear wall. The front wall should 
be 6 to 8 feet in height depending upon depth of house and type 
of roof. Double walls are not necessary. Walls should be tight 
on all sides except the front. Rough boards covered with roof- 
ing paper and grooved siding or flooring may be used. 

Roof. The types of roof most commonly used are the 
shed, gable, combination and "A" roofs. The "A" i-oof is adapt- 
ed to small colony brooder houses. The shed roof may be used 
on houses not over 15 feet in depth. The gable roof is adapted 
to small colony houses for breeding stock. For large houses 
over 15 feet in depth, use the combination or double pitch roof. 

Roofing Materials. Prepared roofing materials are most 



16 BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



satisfactory. Shingles require a 1-3 inch pitch and are ex- 
pensive. Tar paper is not durable. Use a good grade of roof- 
ing. 

Windows. All windows, both for light and ventilation, 
should be placed in the front of the house. Both glass and cloth 
windows should be used. 

Glass windows should be long and narrow, placed vertically 
and high up. This allows the sun the fullest sweep over the 
floor with the least amount of glass area. Use 8x10 inch, or 
9x12 inch glass. Provide one square foot of glass for each 12 
to 15 feet of floor space. 

Cloth windows are used for ventilation. They should be 
rectangular in shape, placed horizontally, and high enough to 
protect the fowls from wind and storm. Provide one square 
foot of cloth surface for each 10 or 12 feet of floor space. Use 
a good grade of unbleached muslin. The cloth window should 
be kept open as much as possible. Close it only on very cold 
nights, during a storm, or on dark, damp, cloudy mornings. 

The cloth windows should be hinged at the top to swing 
in and up. 

The combined cloth and glass surface should be approxi- 
mately one-third of the area of the front side. 

Doors. These should be of convenient size, wide enough to 
permit a cart or wheelbarrow to enter. Outside doors should 
swing in. 

Alley Way. An alley way is not advisable. It occupies 
valuable floor space, is expensive both as to construction and 
labor, increases the air space in proportion to the number of 
fowl's that may be cared for, thus making the house cold, and 
it prevents intimate contact with the flock. 

Interior Fixtures. These should be portable to make clean- 
ing easier and to aid in controlling lice and mites. They should 
be as few in number and as simple in design as possible and 
should be so placed that fowls may have the range of the en- 
tire floor. 

Plans for Poultry Houses. So many conditions must be con- 
sidered in building poultry houses that each individual must, in 
the end, plan his own house. 



The Right Soil for Poultry Yards. 

When the place for the poultry quarters is selected, gen- 
erally little attention is given to the character of the soil, al- 
though this is one of the leading factors in being successful in 
the raising of poultry. 

When poultry is raised as an adjunct to the average Amer- 
ican farm fowls are generally given the liberty of the farm, 
be it clay, sandy, muck, or loam, level or rolling ground, and 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 17 



from hence forward they are left to shift for themselves. The 
hens are allowed to roost in some abandoned shed, in the trees 
or a poultry house is built on a spot of ground which could not 
possibly have been used for any other purpose. The house has 
one or two small windows with a generous portion of the panes 
broken out and the whole house is built with the sole idea of it 
being a roosting place and not to be used during the day, as 
the roosts are built after that well known staii'way style of 
architecture, with the first roost near the floor and to the front, 
and one rising above the other, until the last is well up under 
the roof. The fowls roosting upon the topmost roost show their 
supremacy, as this is the choicest place and cannot be easily 
reached by the good wife wishing a hen to fill the pot for the 
Sunday dinner, or when company unexpectedly comes. With 
this state of affairs it is a matter of the survival of the fittest. 
The fowls shift about for themselves for their food and they 
take their choice of scratching in the chaff in the barn, roam- 
ing about in the pasture, field or orchard or wading about in 
the shallow water of the creek or ditch in quest of morsels of 
food. All the Gallinaceous tribes have wonderful faculty of 
adaptability when given their freedom, as they will roam about 
and find the place most suited to their liking and welfare, and 
remain there the greater part of the day, only returning to 
shelter at night, but the moment the attempt is made to confine 
them to a certain limited territory then the quality of the earth 
upon which it is intended they are to be placed must be taken 
into consideration as well as providing them with a house to be 
used during the day as well as night. 

The kind of soil best adapted to poultry raising is rolling, 
shady or gravelly soil. Fowls thrive better on this kind of soil 
and need less attention than they do any other kind. The 
reason is obvious. Where fowls are kept in any great num- 
bers the ground upon which they tramp day after day quite 
naturally becomes filthy. The sand and gravel soil, being looser 
and lighter, the surface does not become so compact and the 
fowls keep the soil stirred up to certain extent with their 
sci'atching. Then, after each rain this soil is fresh again as 
the water becomes dirt-laden and quickly soaks away. 

With a clay soil, even when rolling, or hilly, quite to the 
contrary is the rule, as well as wdth a muck soil. The more a 
clay soil is tramped the more compact it becomes, added to its 
naturally very compact state. Then when poultry offals and 
rain are added, instead of the filthy water running off or soak- 
ing up quickly, it tends to stand upon the surface and gradually 
dry up, leaving a coating of germ-laden fllth upon the 
ground, which is constantly being added to and in a short time 
fit for neither fowl nor beast to live on until it has been plowed 
or spaded. When it is taken into consideration that filthy and 



18 BUILDING PLANS P'OR POULTRYMEN 



unsanitary quarters are the source of nearly all the evils in the 
poultry yard, then the importance of a naturally healthy footing 
for the fowls may be realized. 

With a heavy soil the only safe way to keep the poultry 
healthy, and the soil clean as well, is by frequently turning the 
soil and sowing it to some forage crop whenever possible. A 
high and dry place, even with sandy soil, should be chosen for 
the poultry runs and houses where there is an abundance of 
drainage. Then the nms should be ample and two runs for 
each pen of fowls. Each alternate run then can be turned under 
and sown to a mixture of lettuce, rape, oats, and wheat, and 
whatever the fowls relish and thrives well in the locality 
during the summer. Just as often as one run becomes divested 
of its crop of green the fowls are turned into the other one 
which has been growing a crop in the meantime. One run then 
is being sweetened up by the growing crop, while the other is 
used by the flock, and vice versa. Then late in the fall one i-un 
should be sown to rye, which furnishes 'an excellent late winter 
and spring green crop. By this method of alternating most any 
soil, high enough to prevent surface water from standing on it, 
will yield good returns in the keeping of fowls when handled 
in an intelligent manner and housed in light, airy houses with 
clean floors and scratching sheds with plenty of litter to keep 
the hens busy. In exceptional cases in towns and cities, where 
a few- hens are kept in very limited quarters and the runs are 
overshadowed so ])y buildings that it is impossible to grow green 
foods successfully in the runs to keep them sweet and sanitary, 
the runs should be co^'ered with several inches of coarse coal 
cinders and a little soft earth spread over. This surface will 
keep clean better than almost anything else used for poultry 
runs. 



Why Some Succeed and Others Fail. 

If we analyze the charactei's of the successful and the un- 
successful poultry keepers, we will find an explanation for the 
quantity and quality of poultry raised by each set of people. 
One is satisfied with the grade of poultry he now raises, and 
if he saw a way open for betterment he would lack in determin- 
ation to have better; wiiile on the other hand the other class 
reads or is told of better stock and other poultry keepers* 
methods that are superior to theirs, and by "determination" they 
go into their work of improving what they already have. Can 
we afford to say that all those wiio are not successful in reach- 
ing wiiat they desire are lacking in determination? I think not, 
because we find men who are striving for better, but for the 
lack of proper tiaining fail. Then we can say that for the 
lack of determination or training or both, they make failures. 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 19 



The word "experience" rules success and failure more or less, 
and the best way of getting it is to be determined that what- 
ever you want to leam will be accomplished one day or another. 

While determination and experience are very vital and of 
so much importance, yet, unless one has proper stock to begin 
with, houses to protect them in, suitable quarters for them to 
exercise in and wholesome, practical food to grow on and pro- 
duce whatever is expected, he cannot expect very much in re- 
turn for his labors. I am satisfied that there are thousands 
of "cull" hens, "roosting in tree tops" and getting their "food 
wherever they chance to find it" today. Still the consuming 
populace is wondering why eggs and poultry meats are so 
high. Where you find one farmer getting eggs from his hens 
during the cold winter days, you will at the same time find two 
that get none at all. Every neighborhood has its intelligent and 
"I'll go" people in it; those who are aware that if you expect 
to get something out of anything you must first put some- 
thing into it. Again, there are those who realize this fact, yet 
for the lack of "I will" fail to make any headway in life. 

It requires grit, gumption and go to be a successful poul- 
try raiser, and unless you are blessed with these you had better 
take up some other calling in the business world, for poultry 
culture is one of the most businesslike vocations to be found. 
Poultry culture is one line of business which needs men who 
have and use business "go" and methods. 

Still another drawback with many who fail is the lack of 
proper selection in the breed that is kept and the best stock 
that is raised each year for future breeding purposes. There 
are thousands of the best pullets that find their way to market 
because they developed faster, while at the same time thousands 
will be kept at home for futvire breeders, because the huckster 
wouldn't take them on acount of undersize. 

You will not find men entering any kind of business unless 
they are somewhat familiar with its general working principles 
yet we find those who will buy a large farm, stock it to its full 
capacity and begin raising chickens without any previous ex- 
perience. No wonder, when we consider some methods used, 
that so many lose out on their poultry ventures. The only 
reason for it, too, is that the hen side of fami work has always 
fallen to women and children, until people had decided that any 
old way would do. At the present stage of advancement one 
must be qualified, having much of "I'll go" and the proper 
kind of material to run his poultry venture on, to be anywhere 
near a successful poultryman. 



20 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



A Model Poultry House at Reasonable Cost. 

Poultry house architecture has gone thru as many and radi- 
cal changes and has progressed quite as much in the last few 
years as dwelling house architecture. Only a few years ago 
the poultry house was merely a roosting room, and was dark 
and poorly ventilated. Then to make a success with the flock 
it was found that the poultry house should be made a living 
room for the fowls, during the winter months at least. It was 
then that the glass front house sprang into pi'ominence. Whole 
south sides of houses were made of glass. But these houses 
absorbed so much heat during the day and cooled off so rapidly 
in the evening that the health of the fowls soon became seriously 
undeiTnined. With this style of house, too, the problem of 



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proper ventilation never became satisfactorily solved. Popular 
opinion then went to the other extreme and we had poultry 
houses with canvas fronts and now we have them with the 
front entirely opened. The difl'iculty with the canvas front was 
the lack of sunshine which the fowls so much crave during the 
coRl winter months. The canvas front admitted fresh air in 
abundance but obstructed the direct rays of the sun. The open 
front house admitted both, of course, but these houses do not 
protect the flock from the severe and many changes of the 
weather enough to make the getting of eggs every month in 
the winter a certainty. 

Primarily, all poultry houses should face the south or south- 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



21 



east, and the one door should invariably be on the east end. 
The ground upon which the house is built should be well drained 
and with a sandy or gravel surface if possible. Near or in an 
orchard makes an ideal place. 

The design of the house shown is pleasing architecturally 
and combines economy and convenience. Built as planned with 
cement floor the combination canvas and glass front, a warm, 
dry and sanitary house is assured. These, together with an 
abundance of sunshine and fresh air, are the prime requisites 
of a good poultry house. 

A trench for the foundation is dug one foot wide and one 
foot deep. Coarse grout cement is filled in the trench and the 




foundation is built six or eight inches above the surface. The 
part of the foundation above the surface is made of a greater 
proportion of cement. The earth dug out of the trenches is 
filled in under the floor. Coarse stone, gravel or cinders is used 
to fill in the floor within an inch of the top of the foundation. 
This should be tamped down very tight. A thin layer of coai'se 
cement— an inch to an inch and a half in thickness in sufficient 
for poultry house flooring — is filled in on the cinders. Finish 
the floor out with an inch of richer concrete for a top dressing. 
This need not be blocked out or smoothed as painstakingly as 
concrete sidewalks. It will be noted that the two by fours and 
siding nailed to them are dropped an inch or more below the 



22 BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



surface of the floor made by imbedding a two by four in the 
cement above the foundation and removing it after the cement 
hardens. Dropping the siding thus below the surface of tlie 
floor prevents v/ater from beating rains flowing in under the 
siding and upon the floor as it does quite frequently where the 
house is built upon a flat surface cement floor. 

The house may be made from tongue and grooved siding 
or cheap rough lumber and covered with roofing paper. In 
either case the roof should be covered with cheap sheathing 
lumber and with a good grade of roofing paper or felt. Shingles 
or tin should not be used in any case. The sheathing should be 
laid in the I'oof aci'oss the short dimension of the roof by the 
interior elevation, to eliminate many rafters, and to make the 
roof tighter upon the framework. 

Below is approximately what is required in the way of lum- 
ber, for the building: 

Seven 2x4's 12 feet long. Thi-ee 2x4's 8 feet long. Three 
2x4's 4 feet long. Four hundred square feet of lumber for 
three sides and the roof. 

The house is ten by twelve feet, the roof twelve by fourteen 
and the house seven feet high in front and four in the rear. Do 
not make the mistake of making a larger house. This house 
will accommodate twenty-five hens easily and if a larger flock 
is kept several of these houses should be built about the orchard. 
Fowls will not do so well where they are kept in large houses 
or large flocks. It is more natural for six or ten fowls to 
roam about together. The house is divided into two parts or 
pens thus making the work of caring for the fowls easier and 
giving each bird a better chance. The partition dividing the 
pens should be built up solid about two feet high, so the fowls 
cannot fight thru the cracks. Above this may be wire netting. 

A single roost or perch is made along the north wall well 
up under the roof. It should be placed about fifteen inches from 
the roof and the same distance from the rear wall. A shelf 
dropping board thirty inches wide is built six or eight inches be- 
neath the roost. This should be made of flooring or hard pine 
and painted with pitch to make it impregnable to moisture. 
With a rake or hoe the board may be cleaned in a moment of 
time. Three or four nests in each part are built directly be- 
neath the dropping board. The dust boxes are also built up off 
the floor about tv^elve inches thus leaving the entire floor space 
for the straw litter for scratching. The floor should be covered 
with six or eight inches of straw at all times into which the 
small grains are thrown which furnishes the fowls exercise, so 
beneficial to their health. 

A canvas curtain tacked upon a frame is hung in front of 
the roost to drop down and meet the front edge of the dropping 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



23 




24 BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



board. It is used only on very cold nights. With this curtain 
down the fowls are enclosed in a cozy little compartment with 
plenty of fresh air passing thru the canvas all the time. 

The windows, four in number, may be 24 inches by 24 inches 
or 20 by 30 inches. They are placed midway between the top 
and bottom of the house. The space above and below the windows 
is covered with canvas which may be tacked to the two by fours 
or on frames and hinged to the two by fours so they may be 
opened during the summer. The windows are made to take out 
so the house may be left as open as possible during the sum- 
mer. Frames of one inch wire netting are desirable to protect 
the window's on the inside and to be used during the summer 
while the window frames are removed. With the two trap doors 
at either corner of the house no other opening should be made 
in the house except the large door in the east end. The north, 
east and west walls should be made wind tight and the roof 
fitting down perfectly tight upon these three walls. This house 
then will be draft proof. 

It will be noticed that a board one foot wide projects over 
the lower canvas and the eave extends out at least twelve inches 
at the top, so that cold, beating rains may not soak the canvas 
and then freeze, thus retarding the ventilation. The wide eave 
not only protects the front, but, as it extends all around the 
house, it also protects the walls and keeps the ground imme- 
diately around the house from becoming so thoroughly w^ater- 
soaked during wet weather. Carbon-dioxide gas, the principal 
ingredient of the expired breath of an animal, is heavier than 
air, and damp air, it is also known, sinks to the floor and thus 
the reason for the canvas below the window and near the floor. 
Warm air rises and the house becomes quite warm during the 
sunshiny days even in winter if there is not a way of ventilating 
the upper portion of the house and so the reason for the canvas 
above. No system of trap door ventilator or drafts has been 
found practical in poultry house ventilation. They either do not 
ventilate at all or cause drafts. The canvas permits a constant 
diffusion of air without drafts. With the canvas frame down 
in front of the fowls at night the air must pass thru two sets 
of canvas. If the roof fits down tight and there are no cracks 
admitting air about the walls of the house this combination of 
glass and canvas front will make as cheap, convenient, attractive 
and serviceable house as can be built and combs will not freeze 
until the temperature drops many degrees below zero. 



A Poultry House That is Different. 

Herewith is presented the plans and description of a poultry 
house that is built radically different from most of the accepted 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



25 



Ne&t 



plans. The idea for this house was suggested by A. V. Thompson, 
Salt Lake City, Utah, and is used with success by him. 

The house fronts south and may be built from any conven- 
ient lumber that is at hand as most of it is protected by the 
roofing paper or material. The width is six feet, the height 
six and three-quarters feet, and the length twelve feet. 

The bottom of the house is made box fashion of one inch 
stuff and is two feet high. The back is boarded up tight and 
Nor iK if practical, is covered 

with tarred paper the same 
as the roof. It is hardly 
necessary to cover the 
sides with the roofing pa- 
per as the eaves extend 
out over them and protect 
them fi'om wind and rain 
alike. The roof is six feet 
t s from the drip to the cone. 

A window is placed in the 
roof on the east side well 
to the front and is covered 
with wire netting from the 
inside and a door or lid to 
fit doMTi tight from the 
outside when the weather 
is very bad or it is rain- 



Box 



t tK 



Fl 




Pl0L.tv3, 6 X. ISLft. 



HevjUlv (,%K- 



Floor Plan of Thompson dov.sc jiescnbecl b. 
Mr. Tormohlen in Accompanying Article. 



mg. There need not be 
any glass for this window 
for whenever it is nice 
enough for the sun to 
shine in it is nice enough 
to have it shine directly 
in without being obstruct- 
ed by the glass. A small 
ridge or raised place mlist 
be made under the roofing 
paper all along the roof 
just above the window so 
the rain cannot seep down 
under the lid when closed. 
Above the two feet base 
in front and to the roof it 
is covered with muslin as 
shown in the illustration. 
Another door should be 
provided beside the muslin 
or canvas as shown in 
the illustration and cover- 
ed with one inch wire net- 



26 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



ting. The one door can swing out and the other in. Most of 
the time the inner door, only, will be used. 

The ground plan of this house is interesting in that it is 
quite different than most houses now advocated. Mr. Thompson 
saye he does not like dropping boards as they are too much 
trouble and he does not like the nest under the dropping board 
as they are too hard to get at and to keep the lice and mites out 
of, so he places the roosts in a second compartment in the back 
of the house down under the roof on the west side and the 
nests he places up off the ground as indicated and with the 
entrance for the hens at the rear. Of course, then, it is so 
dark in this nest that the hens never leani the egg eating 










habit nor do they fight over the nest. A little trap door or lid 
is made in the back of the nest from which the attendant can 
remove the eggs. This is quite handy. Straw to the depth of 
six inches is placed under the roosts to catch the droppings and 
this is removed whenever necessary and clean sti'aw put in. 
It is strange how men's experiences differ with poultry. For 
my part I think the dropping board one of the modern con- 
veniences and nothing could be easier for me to clean and to 
go back to the old fashioned way with no dropping board would 
almost cause me to lose my chicken experience altogether, but 
this is where man's ideas differ about what is work and what 
is play. 

A muslin partition is placed between the roosting room and 
scratching floor and during the coldest nights the door to this 
part is closed. As a I'ule though it is left open. With this door 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 27 



closed the roosting' room of this house would be one of the 
warmest that could be imagined. With the same thought, I 
think this house would be most too hot with all the windows and 
doors out during the summer for poultry to roost in comfort- 
ably. This house would rather be for the extreme northern 
fancier and those on the plains where high winds are pre- 
valent as it is economical from a use of lumber standpoint and 
is so low that it could be kept warm where most houses could 
not. 

Six foot fanciers, like myself, would not take readily to this 
house, I am afraid, for to be practical, a house must be high 
enough to permit the attendant to stand erect in all the work- 
ing space in the house. This is the principal draw back to these 
plans. 

Mr. Thompson fills the whole house with about six inches 
of wet clay or earth and t&^ps it down tightly for a floor. The 
scratching room floor is co\^ered generously with straw and into 
this he feeds all the grains. The feed boxes or hoppers are filled 
with charcoal, grit, oyster shell, beef scraps and bran and chop. 
This house will accommodate twelve birds easily. 



A Practical Small House for Fowls. 

Some of the poultry keepers think that the coop or house 
in which they keep their fowls is one of the least important 
things connected with the work. This is where many people 
make their first mistake which results in failure. Proper hous- 
ing of the fowls should come first in our consideration. One 
should never purchase chickens unless he has a proper place 
in which to keep them. The coop illustrated in connection wjth 
this article is to my mind an ideal one, both for the large and 
small fancier. It answers all requirements for all seasons of 
the year. It can be located at any convenient place, but the 
window should face the south. Almost any kind of lumber is 
suitable for consti-ucting the coop. The one important feature 
is that the coop mtist be tight and dry. In case the boards do 
not fit closely together, the sides of the house can be covered 
with a good roofing or tar paper. The same material can be 
used for the roofing. It will be noted by referring to the 
sketch that the entire coop is under one roof, but it is divided 
into two appartments. For the purpose of describing the con- 
struction of the house we will call the left half of it section A 
and the right half section B. 

The sides of the entire coop are boarded tightly with the 
exception of the door and opening in section A and the door, 
window and ventilator in section B. The two sections are sep- 
arated by a partition which has but two openings, the door and 



28 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



the exit for the fowls. Section B has a board floor while sec- 
tion A has a ground floor. The former is raised about six 
inches from the ground to prevent damp. The window should 
be made as large as possible as light is essential. There should 
be an opening in section A covered with a small mesh wire and 
on the outside of this a curtain or canvas to pull down in the 
winter time. The interior of section B should be the same as any 
other coop. The nests should be about eighteen inches from the 
floor, the dropping boards under the roosts and the curtain 




The left half of the house is referred to a s section A and the right half as section B. 

in front of the roosts which may be pulled down during cold 
weather. Section A should contain litter about six inches deep. 
Section B is the sleeping quartei's of the fowls and section A 
is the scratching compartment which sei-ves as a refuge for the 
fowls in cold and rainy weather when it is not advisable to 
allow them to run out into the yards. I believe that this house 
is really without faults and I am sure that all who try it will 
be pleased with it. I have not specified the size because the 
house can be built large or small according to one's needs. 



Back Yard Poultry House. 

Poultry house construction is without a doubt the most 
important factor in poultry management. Without a suitable 
poultry house it is impossible to obtain the most profit from the 
poultry flock. Disease and vermin are hard to control. The 
vitality is apt to be lowered and even with the most efficient 
ration, good results cannot be hoped for. For these reasons, the 
first step after securing the right kind of stock is to provide 
suitable homes for the poultry flock. 

On the opposite page is illustrated a type of house that is 
very practical and of the right size for the average family 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 29 



flock, as it will conveniently house from twenty to twenty-five 
birds. 

Among the first things taken into consideration with this 
design, or these working drawings, are cheapness and simplicity 
in construction. It will be noted that the only two-by-fours 
required here are three six-foot pieces on which the floor is 
laid, the walls being nailed to cleats of same thickness as the 
boards forming these different sections. 

The largest boards showTi are the roof and floor boards, 
which are eight feet, but should boards of this length not be 
available, they could be laid the narrow way of the coop, which, 
of course, would make them six feet long. However, if the 
latter is done, it will be necessary to lay the two-by-fours 
lengthwise of the coop, which would increase them two feet in 
length. 

The longest boards required for the walls are five feet, 
running down to three feet in length, which will enable us to 
use such old lumber as may be lying around the yard, or using 
the boards from old shipping cases, etc. 

Nests should be about eighteen inches square, two on each 
side, under dropping board. The bottom of the nests are 
to slide on cleats to which the boards of the side wall are nailed, 
and the top of nests to be guided with a cleat nailed to bottom 
of dropping board. This method you will find very convenient 
in gathering the eggs, which should be done several times a day 
in freezing weather. 

As for the sash, it will be noted that no glass sizes are 
marked, as it is quite possible that second hand sash may be 
purchased, which might vary a little from sizes showTi. 

Under certain conditions, I would suggest covering the 
entire outside of coop with water proof building paper to elimin- 
ate any draught through the cracks, but this is a matter to be 
considered according to the climatical conditions. 

The hopper and drinking fountain should be kept off the 
floor for the purpose of keeping them clean when the fowls 
scratch in the litter for their feed. 

The scratching shed is to have no floor, as the fowis enjoy 
dusting themselves in the dirt, which is an excellent remedy or 
preventative for lice and unites. 

The building should be shifted enough several times a sea- 
son to place the scratching shed over new soil, and the old soil 
spaded under, as the droppings cause the ground to become 
sour, which is detrimental to your flock. The board which is 
sho^vn to screw on is for the purpose of separating the building 
readily and moving it in two sections. 

The walls and roofs of this building may be put together 
with hooks and screw eyes, instead of being nailed together, but 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 31 



this is not necessary, however, unless you care to have it port- 
able. 

Don't overlook using a disinfecting white paint such as 
"Carbola" or white washing the entire interior of your build- 
ing, as this is one of the most important things to be con- 
sidered from a sanitary standpoint, as well as adding consider- 
ably to the light. 



"A"-Shape Colony House. 

The accompanying drawing illustrates a type of coop known 
as the "Colony House," but as this design is particularly adapt- 
able to back yard poultry keeping, we will describe it briefly 
along this line for the benefit of those who are limited to the use 
of a city lot, where a larger building would be prohibitive. It 
will be noted that this building is shown to be constructed port- 
able by the use of hinges or loose pinned butts and hooks. This 
construction is particularly good for those who wish to build one 
or more of these coops under shelter during the winter months, 
and place same at their selected location in the spring. The 
butts are to be screwed securely to cleats to hold the different 
sections tightly in place, and when ready to move or store away, 
the loose pins can be removed, leaving the butts in the proper 
location for erection. The entire coop is secured to the floor 
by the use of hooks and screw eyes, but should it be decided to 
locate the building permanently, the sections may be nailed to- 
gether, which would, of course, eliminate tha additional cost of 
hardware. 

This coop being only eight feet square and supplied with 
plenty of glass to admit sunlight, it is especially adapted for 
limited space, where a scratching shed would cover too much 
ground. Altho matched flooring would make a tight and draft- 
proof building, it is a rather expensixe construction, so I would 
suggest a cheaper grade of lumber and cover the entire exterior 
of the coop with water-proof building paper. 

It will be noticed that the dropping board does not extend 
the full width of the coop, allowing room to get at the back of 
the nests, but I believe I could improve on this by running the 
dropping boai'd the full width of the coop and constructing nests 
to pull out on truck rollers or cleats. Another suggestion I 
would make, owing to the shallowness of this building, is this: 
Where the winters are severe I would px'ovide a drop curtain in 
front of the roosts to eliminate as much as possible the freezing 
of the combs of the large-combed varieties. 

Roosts are things that seem to be a matter of opinion among 
fanciers, but in my opinion it is natural for a chicken to stand 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 33 



flat-footed and not be obliged to cling to a round pole or narrow 
roost. I find the use of two strips about three inches wide, one 
being nailed edgewise to the other for stiffness forming a "T" 
shaped roost, to be very desirable and simple in construction. 



Iowa Model of Half-Monitor Roof Type Poultry. 

By H. A. BITTENBENDER, Professor in Poultry Husbandry, 
Iowa State College of Agriculture, Ames, Iowa. 

The semi-monitor poultry house appears to be a good prac- 
tical house for the general farm, because it contains those prin- 
ciples of construction which are essential for successful produc- 
tion. First of all it has the floor space arranged so that it 
will be most practical and beneficial for the poultry flock during 
the winter months. The principle of ventilation is maintained 
in the best possible manner. Sunlight can readily gain access 
in almost all parts of this house. Its cost, when compared with 
other types of houses is not much greater and for the few addi- 
tional dollars that it may cost in construction it will pay good 
interest in the form of healthy poultry. 

A few of the principles of poultry house construction which 
should be kept in mind are: 

1. For 150 hens a house 22x24 is necessary. 

2. The foundation of floor should consist of six to eight 
inches crushed stone or gravel, a layer of hollow tile and an 
inch of cement. 

3. For every ten feet of floor space allow one foot of 
opening in front. 

4. Face house toward south. 

5. Windows in upper portion of house should be open four 
to six inches in winter and one to two feet in summer, hinged at 
bottom. 

Poultry house construction is without doubt the most im- 
portant factor in poultry management. Without a suitable poul- 
try house it is impossible to obtain the most profit from the 
poultry flock. Disease and vermin are hard to control. The 
vitality is apt to be lowei'ed and even with the most efficient 
ration good results cannot be hoped for. For these reasons we 
think that the first step after securing the right kind of stock 
is to provide suitable homes for the poultry flock. 

The semi-monitor type of farm poultry house is not only 
economical in construction but its design fits in attractively 
with other farm buildings. These factors are not so essential 
to obtaining a high egg production, but when a house combines 
all of these essentials together with those for the development 
of the best health of the flock and a high and economical egg 
production, it is the best type of house to build. 

The semi-monitor type of farm poultry house has been 












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H 
EI 
EB 
EE 

EE 
EB 

Ea 

EH 






36 BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



constructed in practically all parts of the country and it seems 
to work in equal success in the south as well as in the north. 
The depth of 22 feet with the arrangement of the windows and 
the open front, provides that almost the entire floor space of 
the house is reached by sunlight at some time during the day. 
Especially during the winter months when the days are short 
is the sunlight at its best from the standpoint of this house. 

For extreme northern conditions, if the open front covered 
with muslin frames proves too severe, part of the front can be 
equipped with windows but only in a few instances has this 
been found necessary. 

The house is complete in practically every detail. The 
roosts are hinged at the back and can be raised for cleaning, the 
dropping board slides in and is easily removed for thoro disinfec- 
tion. With all of these conveniences it takes but little time to 
care for a flock of 150 chickens. This unit of construction should 
be kept in mind and if the flock desired is more than 150, add 
to the length of the house but do not change the depth or 
height of the house, as it has been found that these dimensions 
produce the desired results. 

Agricultural Extension Poster No. 18, issued by the Iowa 
State College of Agriculture gives detailed plans of the Iowa 
Model House. 



A Cheap Scratching Shed. 

In spite of all the precaution not to have too many fowls in 
a house a great many poultrymen find that their houses are too 
small to comfortably accommodate the flock which they would 
like to keep ovei-. On account of being over crowded quite a 
number of poultrymen have found that their hens do not lay 
in November as they should when the price of eggs goes 
soaring. Hens can't possibly do well if they are crowded or are 
not fed right. The feed is a great factor in getting eggs but 
no matter how perfect the feed or well balanced the ration the 
hens will not lay unless they have comfortable quai-ters, cozy 
roosts, fresh air and plenty of litter to exercise in. 

Even if it is December and winter, if your hens are not 
laying as they should and are overcrowded it is not too late 
to build a shed like the sketch, on the side of the poultry 
house or bam. Have the lumber and roofing material all ready 
and the first nice day two men can put up a shed like this in a 
very short time. If the ground is frozen so that you cannot 
put a lot of gravel in it, fill it with cinders so the shed will 
not be damp on the floor. I would not advise putting in a 
wooden floor unless you have a lot of cheap waste lumber, but 
then if you do this you will have to take care to build it high 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



37 



enough so that it will not be a harbor for rats and if it is 
built up off the ground the wind sweeping under it is liable to 
make it cold. 

Don't make the mistake of making this shed 
too high. The lower it is the more comfortable. With a suit- 
able roofing material the slant of the roof need not be very 
great. 

Leave the whole south side of this shed open. It may be 
covered with wire netting as it a good idea to keep the hens 




A cheap scratching shed. 

confined in the house, where a shed for scratching is provided, 
the greater part of the cold winter months. Some of the weaker 
fowls cannot then be driven out in the cold wind and take cold 
or roup as is so often the case. 

The secret of making the hens happy, like a boy, is to 
give them something to do and the only way to keep the hens 
busy in cold winter months when everything is frozen up, is 
to provide plenty of litter. You can hardly provide too much 
nice clean straw for a hen to scratch in. Many farmers wonder 
why their hens do not lay during the winter and yet they have 
plenty of the wherewith with which to make the hen happy and 
keep her busy. 

Into the litter of straw some six or eight inches deep feed 
all the whole grains and make the hens work for as much of 
their feed as possible. 



A California Poultry House. 

Chickens thrive most and do best where they can roam 
about over green fields and under the orchard and woodland 
shade at will, searching for the morsel that strikes their par- 



38 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



ticular fancy. To keep the fowls close to nature is the secret 
of success of many of our most famous fanciers and exhibitors. 
Even when it comes to conditioning for show purposes the 
secret of success of many a string of blue ribbon winners has 
been that thev were left to roam hero and there, but -with care- 
ful attention and extra morsels of food placed in inviting places 
each day, and the fowls thus left round out their bodies and fill 
out their plumage until almost the last day before the show. 




Tho California poultry house. 

This brings a fowl in in what is termed "the pink of condition," 
which cannot be beaten by any amount of unnatural condition- 
ing. Wlien they are housed unnaturally and pampered they soon 
show a lack of vitality. 

The canvas front and open air types of houses have solved 
the problem for the poulterers in the northern states, but it 
was left for the California poulterers to adapt a different style 
of architecture entirely in poultry house constiaiction, and the 
type of house shown in the illustration is the product of Cali- 
fornia same as the bungalow. 

This house is used quite extensively upon some of the large 
Leghorn egg-laying farms. These houses are distributed out 
over the orchard or almond grove, and units of thirty or forty 
hens roost in a house. The fowls kept in this fashion are as 
near to nature as it is possible to keep them. They do much bet- 
ter when kept in small flocks as it seems to be nature's plan 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 39 



to have small flocks and abhore great masses. The houses are 
far enough apart that it is not necessary to place wire netting 
between them. The fowls, of course, run together somewhat 
during the day, but large numbers of them are never found 
congregated together in one place. 

It will be noticed that their roosts are rather high and on 
a level. The higher the roost for the Leghorn, the better as it 
seems to give them an air of security and contentment. The 
highest roost, you have always noticed with fowls, is always 
the choicest place according to chicken idea, and so they are 
all placed on a level, eliminating crowding in one part of the 
house. 



Making the Poultry House Burglar Proof. 

It is a safe maximum to say: "That the higher class the 
home and its out buildings and the better the stock and posses- 
sions the more liable they are to be tampered with and invaded 
by thieves." No matter where you are situated, you are run- 
ning a risk of having the horse stolen, the barn burned, or the 
hen roost lifted, however remote the risk might seem to you. 
And by the way, had you ever noticed that the person who rests 
so secure persuaded to believe he is by his own reasoning, is 
the one fii'st touched by thieves. Like the farmer of old, they are 
the ones who lock the barn after the horse is gone. 

For the want of reliable information on the subject and 
because the average electrician does not make a business of 
putting in burglar alarms and therefore does not keep posted 
on the latest methods of putting them in the average property 
owner has been led to think the cost of installing one is rather 
heavy and the systems too complicated to work well and be 
absolutely reliable under all circumstances in untrained hands. 

There are two systems of wiring — the open and the closed. 
The open circuit system is used much more than the closed altho 
the closed is the more reliable in some respects. In the open 
circuit system all that is required is two dry cell batteries, a bell 
and the insulated wire is arranged in the building so that if 
a wkidow or door is opened it will cause the wire running from 
the batteries to be connected and thus ring the bell. Most any- 
one with any knowledge of electrical appliances at all can install 
the open circuit system for the doors and windows of the home. 
The weak point about the open circuit is that it is easy to put 
out of commission by the ordinary thief if it is installed in the 
barn or poultry house with the wires running to the house. The 
thief will be almost sure to see these wires and with an ordinary 
pen knife cut one or both and thus opening the open circuit all 
the wider and cutting off all chance of the two ends of the wire 
meeting and completing the circuit and ringing the bell in the 



40 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



house. But if the wires can be put in an underground conduit 
or concealed so they cannot possibly be discovered the open cir- 
cuit is just as reliable in any of the outbuildings as in the 
home. With the closed circuit, which will be described later, 
the thief gets himself into trouble all the sooner by cutting the 
wires and it is advisable with this system to put them in plain 
view for just the moment the circuit is broken by the wire being 
cut the bell immediately rings in the house. And no matter how 
expert the thief he cannot experiment with the wires on the out- 
side of a building to find whether they connect an open or closed 
system without setting the bell to ringing if the closed system 
is used. The closed system is so seldom used that he will most 
likely sever the \nre. I say this is the most likely thing he 
%\ill do. Nine chances to one it is an open system and then nine 
chances to one he has put the electric alarm system out of 
commission in short order but if yours is the tenth chance and 
the closed circuit trouble is on hand at once. 

The Open Circuit. 

The open circuit needs an electric bell with a 25 inch gong 
and enough annunciator, or bell wire, to make a metallic circuit 
to your residence. Rubber covered heavier wire is preferable 
for outside wiring. Two cells of dry battery should operate a 
distance of two hundred feet and an additional cell for each 
hundred feet. To wire a poultrj- house or barn, on the sill of 





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V 


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1 








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i^ho^vlng plate under door for open system. When a jierson steps 

on the board the contact is made on the copper plates between the 

board and sill. 

each opening tack a piece of copper tin 2x4 inches, ever\- two 
feet. Under this tin plate, coil a piece of wire, free from" insu- 
lation for two or more inches so that the tin will press firmlv 
agamst the bare bright ^\ire. Then saw a board the width of 
your sill and about one inch shorter at each end than the open- 
ing to fit over the sill. Mark on the board where the tin plate 
will strike this board, if placed in its proper place and place tin 
or copper with two feet of wire attached, on the board the same 
as on the sill. Now get some No. 1 brass spring wire and make 
three or four springs about one inch high when opened enough 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 41 



to spring good. Bore holes in the sill and the board to match 
about one-quarter inch in depth and fit the springs in them. 
Placed thus, they should keep the square pieces of contact 
plates about one-quarter inches apart. Bore four holes thru the 
top board a little larger than a good sized wire spike. Then 
set the board in its proper position with springs under and drive 
spikes in the holes down until the heads leave about one-quarter 
in play at the top above the board. This allows the board to 
work up and down if pressure is made on the board at any point 
and yet the board is finnly attached to the sill so that it cannot 
be detached easily. 

The two wiz-es brought from the residence attached to the 
fence posts and the outbuildings and carried along under the 
brought inside the wired building and carried along under the 
windows and past the doors. Each wire of the upper contact 
boards is connected with one of the wires from the residence 
from the sill are connected with the other wire from the resi- 
dence. Care must be taken to remove the insulation from the 
wire wherever a connection is made. 

Plates or boards as described above should be placed under 
or on the sills of all the windows and doors but as an extra pre- 
caution for the doors where the thief is liable to be careful not 
to step on the sill, tack a piece of tin or copper two inches 
square on the back edge with the bare end of the wire under it 
the same as under the sills. On the wcathei'-boarding place a 
piece of the spring wire about two inches long with an eye at 
one end for a heavy screw. Then fasten a short insulated wire, 
ends scraped off, to the screw, i-unning it (the wire) thm the 
board and into the building. The wires attached to the tin on 
the door and the screw on the spring should be attached to the 
wires leading to the residence, the same as the sill connections. 
If the door opens inwardly it is much better as the connection 
is on the inside where it cannot be tampered with. Now when 
you lock your house at night turn the spring on door over the 
tin plate just so it will not touch unless door is opened. The 
connections on the sills are always set so that the door is all 
that need be bothered with each night. Now fasten your bell 
where wanted in the house, attaching one wire from the wired 
building to one binding post on the bell, and the other wire from 
the building to the zinc post of nut attachment on the outer 
edge of one battery. With a small piece of wire attach the 
center post of this same battery to the zinc of the seconcl bat- 
tery and the carbon center post of this battery to the other 
binding post on the bell. The system is complete and the mo- 
ment pressure is applied on the sill in the poultry house or barn 
bell gives the warning. 

The Closed System. 

The closed system is much more complicated and therefore 
costs more to install but when once installed it will last for 



42 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



years and will operate clear across a town, if wired properly, 
and is absolutely dependable. The batteries are strong enough 
with this system that the house and all the outbuildings can 
be wMred and attached to the same circuit. The closed circuit 
is really two circuits. The electricity is continually flowing thru 
one thus causing an iron bar (in the telegraph relay) to be 
magnetized continually so that it holds another iron bar firmly 




Showinvr method of tacking' wire on each l)oard in rnof and sido to 
lirevent thieves rcmovinK lioards. Kor closc^d circuit and wft batteries 

only. 

to it. immediately when the wire is cut or the circuit broken 
the iron bar loses its magnetism and drops the other iron bar 
and this bar in dropping completes the circuit on another sys- 
tem and it rings the bell just as in the open circuit. 

It takes the following material to make the closed circuit 
system: 

1 telegraph relay, cither Pony or main line. 

I two point switch. 

6 jars crow foot batteries. 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



43 



Main line covered telephone wire for all outside wiring. 
Annunciator wire for inside work. 

Porcelain knobs if you run wire outside on posts, other- 
wise staple it but do not break the insulation. 
Blue vitrol. 
1 small door bell, electric same as open circuit. 

1 two-point switch. 

2 dry batteries. (The last three items are required for the 
bell circuit inside the house.) 

With the closed circuit it requires six wet batteries beside 
the two dry ones. Each work independently of each other, or 
rather their circuits do not connect. Set up the six wet bat- 
teries a couple of days before using as follows: Take the cop- 
per plates furnished with the wet batteiics. open them out and 
bend ends over a trifle and place one in the bottom of each jar. 
Hang the zinc crow foot on the edge of each jar and then care- 
fully fill the jar with water until the water covers the prongs 



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1 


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Method of weaving: insulated wire in wire netting or back of canvas 

in the fresh air style of iioultry house so widely used at the present 

time. The moment a thief cuts the wire the bell rinns. 

of the crow foot. Connect up the batteries A\ith short pieces 
of copper wire by attaching the copper of one jar to the zinc 
of the other and so on thru the six jars and finally connect the 
copper with the sixth one to the zinc of the first one and let 
them work 48 hours. 

Put the wet batteries in the cellar or some out of the 
way place where they will not freeze. Place the relay up on a 
shelf where it will not be disturbed. Run a wire from one of the 
binding posts on the relay to the copper plate of the first bat- 



44 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



tery. Run a wire from the other binding post of the relay to 
the poultry house, placing a two-point switch in it at some con- 
venient point about the house so it can be opened and closed at 
will. From the crow foot on the last wet battery run a second 
wire to the poultry house. Two wires are attached to the other 
two binding posts "of the relay and one is attached to the center 
post of one of the dry batteries. The zinc of the first dry bat- 
tery is attached to the center post of the second dry battery by 




:5=^ 



A wet battery crow-foot kin''. Six of these are re(iuire<J for the closed 
circuit alarm. 

a small wire and a wire fi'om the zinc of the second battery is 
run to the small bell in the bedroom and attached to one of the 
binding posts. Run the second wire from the binding post back 
thru a two-point switch to the relay. Then as stated above, 
when the current is running thru the wet battery sysem it keeps 
the dry battery system open but the moment the wet battery cir- 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 45 



cuit is cut or opened it releases the open battery circuit, closing 
it and ringing the bell. As might be expected, then, with the 
wet battery or closed system, the houses have to be mred 
exactly opposite so that the circuit is complete all the time. 
Instead of springs to keep the points of contact apart, as in the 
open circuit, springs should be used to keep the contact plates 
together all the time so that the moment they are tampered 
with, the window opened or door opened, they fly apart. 

The advantage with the closed circuit is that the wire can 
be tacked to each board on the back, sides and roof of a Poul- 
try house, if there is any danger of thieves removmg the boards 
to get in, as they quite often do, and then when a board is pned 
off the thief breaks or cuts the wire causing his undoing. If the 
small insulated wire is securely stapled to each board in the back 
and sides of the barn or poultry house the prying off ot the hrst 
board will easily break the wire and the thief will probably not 
know anything about it, and you can dress at liesure and then 
yet get to the building before he has pried off enough boards 

° ^Another decided advantage of the closed system is that the 
house to be wired for thieves need not be closed tight. In the 
case 6f a poultrv house it may be an open front with only wire 
netting covering the opening or it may be that the openings 
are covered with canvas or muslin in which case they can be 
wired just as easilv as the closed building. If a bara is wired 
and several windows are to to be left open during the summer 
a covering of wire netting is all that is necessary. Use the 
small insulated bell wire in this case and across any opening 
weave it in and out in the wire netting across the opening at 
intei-vals of eight inches or a foot. Then connecting with the 
same w-ive weave it, likewise, up and down across the opening, 
thus making squares eight inches or one foot m diameter. With 
a canvas front poultry house the wires should be tacked across 
in the same manner just back of the canvas. In either case 
be sure the wire is securely fastened on the sills each time 
so it A\'ill require cutting to get it loose. The thief will hardly 
notice the wire if woven in with the wire netting and he will 
not lose much time in cutting it after cutting the canvas front 

or wire netting. ^i , ^ • +i,„ 

Even with closed windows this same method of ranning the 
wire back and forth across the opening just back of the ymdow 
and fastening it to the sill each time, may be employed. Ihe 
window may be opened or closed at will and yet the system 
is always ready. Where a window is always closed at night 
or opened a certain distance (being sure the distance is not 
enough to admit a man's body without raising it higher) two 
points of contact may be made by imbedding a copper plate in 
the window frame and one in the A\indoAV just opposite so that 
they press finnly against each other. When the window is 



46 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



raised these points of contact are pulled apart, thus breaking the 
current and ringing the bell. A copper plate may be imbedded 
in the door and door frame in the same manner so that they 
press firmly against each other when the door is closed. When 
the door is opened, then, the current is broken. So easy is it 
to set up a closed circuit system and have it work that a wood 
pile might be wired in a few minutes time. Two sticks of wood, 
which would most likely be picked up should have the ends of 
the insulated wire fastened to them. The insulation is cut off 
in a convenient place on each stick and then the sticks placed 
on the pile of wood so the bare wires of each stick press 
against each other and foi-m a firm contact. When the current 
is turned on it flows through this break uninterrupted. But 
when one of the sticks is picked up or moved the current is 
broken and the bell rings. 

During the day when the system is not in use the switches 




leic'i^'i-aph pony relay lor the closed system. 



leading each way from the relay and controlling the dry and 
wet battery circuits should be opened so the wet batteries will 
not be worldng and wasting continually. 

The wet batteries are cheaper to keep up after once installed 
than the dry ones. They should be cleaned about every two 
months and half of the old solution used again. The crow-foot 
should always be covered with water to insure it working prop- 
erly. 

Follow the following insti'uctions in adjusting the relay, 
which can be purchased of any electrical store: 

Reverse the back contact screw so that the platinum point 
will be in front of the armature and the i-ubber point screw 
over the magnets. The relay must be adjusted close up to the 
ai-mature. These terms will be easy to understand if the relay 
is in hand. The electrician, though, in a moment's time, can 
explain the working of it. The relay is similar to the ticker on 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



47 




With the tiiangular piece of board 
hinged at the top as shown and a 
spike nail or iron bolt fitting in a 
hole in the door jam on the hinged 
side, a contact is made by opening 
the door. When the door is closed 
the contact is broken. Can be made 
in ten minutes for the open or dry 
battery circuit. 



a telegraph instrument but it 
does not have the telegraph 
key attached. They can be 
purchased for various sums, 
but the cheapest will answer 
the purpose well. 

The closed circuit system is 
generally used in wiling jewelers 
show cases and windows and 
doors and homes with private 
collections or rare and costly 
collections of gems or books or 
what not. But because the in- 
formation is not given out how 
to install it by electricians, 
generally, it is not as exten- 
sively used as is the open cir- 
cuit which can be installed by 
most anyone today. They are 
so simple that the average 
school boy can set them up and 
the knowledge of how to oper- 
ate them is not and cannot be 
kept in the hands of the expert 
electricians. 

All owners of valuable 
stock, poultry or outbuildings 
should install the closed circuit 
and have all fear of thieves 
allayed. For the home, only, 
the open circuit described first 
is the better and cheaper. 



48 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



Automatic Release Door. 

Poultry breeders who are believers in the old adage: "The 
early bird gets the woi-m," will undoubtedly be interested in the 
accompanying illustration of an automatic release door to be 

used on poultry houses 
where it is desired that 
the poultry shall be se- 
curely locked during the 
night and yet have the 
advantage of the first 
rays of the morning sun 
out on the range. The 
flock out on the range 
with the first rays of 
daylight has the advan- 
tage of two or three of 
the best hours of the day 
to gi'ow and to find the 
early bugs and worms 
which they would not 
otherwise have, should 
they have to sit and fret 
waiting for their keeper 
to release the trap door 
to let them out to free- 
dom and the fresh morn- 
ing air. 

Those who have had 

the sad experience of the 

nightly raids upon their 

hen roosts, by weasels, 

foxes or other night 

prowlers, when the house 

( was left open for the 

/ fowls to get out bright 

and early will especially 

Automatic release door. Welcome these plans. 

An explanation of the plans is hardly necessary as the 
sketch well gives the details of construction. The movement 
of the trap is very simple and easy and is released by the first 
bird which walks onto the slightly raised false floor. A string 
is fastened to this floor passing up over the projecting T-shape 
attachment and down to the wire hook. To this cord is at- 
tached a weight, heavy enough to balance the false floor when 
raised and set for action as sho\\ni in the lower plan. The trap 
is attached to the outside of the building and can be of any size 



I 








-^Ki^ 


.1 \i^c 


^. 


z 


^ 


—J 


J 






•^ 
















. _ 





T 


i- 11"-. 




■// 


° 




^ 




/ 





BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 49 



desired according to the breed. The dimensions given are 
siiitable for any of the medium sized fowls, but for any of the 
large ones, such as Brahmas, Cochins, or Langshans, the opening 
into the house will have to be enlarged accordingly. 

The front trap door is covered with inch mesh wire netting 
or the finer one-half inch if it is desired to be sure of the 
weasels. This door must be covered with wire that the fowls 
may be attracted by the light and thus be induced to come out 
upon the false floor and release themselves. When the wire 
door is up the hock is pulled down over the edge and should be 
tight enough to hold on by its own weight, as all resistence is 
relieved by the counter weight which is fastened just above the 
hook. The weight, of course, should be just heavy enough to 
balance the false floor, so that it will stand in any position to 
which it may be raised. 

About four inches is sufficient incline to set the false floor. 
The end of the false floor toward the building should be 
fastened to the floor with a hinge. The weight of the first hen 
will release the trap door the instant she walks out upon the 
inclined board permitting all the flock to pass out. 



A Good Home Made Trapnest. 

The illustration shown gives a fair idea of a trap nest that 
anybody can make in a little while with only a hammer and a 
saw for tools. Of course, if you have many hens you will have 
to make several nests to accommodate all, and then all the 
other nests must be closed or torn up. 

The trap nest has been quite an important factor in build- 
ing up strains of heavy layers among most of the popular breeds 
today. The down-to-date American has insisted upon knowing 
just how many eggs a hen could lay in a year when the state- 
ment was made that she was a good layer. Then with definite 
figures and a standard to go by, made by the best layers in a 
large flock, he has insisted that it was possible to have a whole 
flock of layers as capable of turning out a great number of eggs 
as the few heavy layers that he started with. What the Bab- 
cock test has done for the dairyman in eliminating the non- 
cream producing cows from his herd, the trap nest has done for 
poultrydom in eliminating the non-layers from the flock of hens. 
Using the trap nest, the breeder, by a process of elimination 
and culling each year, breeds from only the best layers in his 
flock and has slowly increased the average egg yield per hen 
until it is a third more than twenty-five years ago. The small 
fancier and back-yard poultry raiser has taken more interest 
and has been more successful along this line, as he has had only 
a few hens and a limited space. He knew just how many hens 



50 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



he had and how many his neighbor had and the neighborly pride 
in getting more eggs per hen from his flock excited more care 
and interest. 

The trap nest is made in two compartments. The box 
proper is fifteen inches square by thirty-two to thirty-six inches 
long. The hole or opening between the compartments need not 
be round as pictured unless you care to make it so, but it should 

be just large enough 
for a hen from your 
flock to pass through 
easily. The larger 
breeds require a larger 
opening, of course. 

A large stiff wire is 
bent in the shape indi- 
cated, and the part 
passing over the open- 
ing is made to work 
freely up and down 
under the wire guards 
hold by small staples, 
the whole wire as- 
suming a lever ac- 
tion. 

With the trap door 
caught up on other arm 
of the lever, the hen 
passes under it and as 
she stai-ts to pass un- 
der the wire lever into 
the second compart- 
ment and into the nest 
proper, her back gently 
presses against the 
wire raising it and at 
the same instant slid- 
ing the other end of the 
lever out from under 
the trap door. The first 
compartment should be 
made a little longer 
than the trap door is high enough to prevent the door 
dropping on the hen's back before she gets quite into the nest 
proper. The wire arm over the opening should be placed high 
enough so that the hen will naturally try to pass under it in- 
stead of over it. Each hen should have an aluminum or copper 
leg band, with a number on it, on one of her legs. Then as 
you release the hen you can put the egg down on your memo- 
randum to her credit. Sometimes the hens will enter the nest 




Home made Trap Nest, desoribed by H. 
Tormohlen in accompanying article. 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



51 



for curiosity, and especially is this true when the system is first 
installed, but after they become used to it, they will seldom ever 
enter except to lay. To get the hens acquainted with the nests 
the doors may be propped up for several days. 

The trap is also excellent for sitting hens — you can release 
the hen to get her feed and trap the door, and then after she 
goes back on her nest she shuts the door after her and other 
hens cannot enter to bother her or break the eggs. You can 
also easily catch the hen that is an egg eater with the trap nest, 
as some of the broken egg shells will tell the tale. 



A Simple Home Made Trapnest. 

This illustration shows a simple trapnest that can easily be 
made by anyone handy with tools. It can be made out of any 
ordinary box with the proper dimensions. The complete nest 
should be about eighteen inches long and the front about one 
foot square. A strip about two inches wide should be fastened 
on the floor of the nest about twelve inches from the back, mak- 



I - 




Hg le FRONT OF NEST AND TRIGGER 
Th^ door should be constructed of light matensl so a 
illy One-tpch iraicnal should be used in tnaking the itigg 




ing a nest in the back of the box about twelve inches square. 
The trigger, which is made out of one-inch material, is fastened 
to the side of the nest box. When the trap is set the door rests 
on this trigger. As the hen enters, she raises the door slightly 
with her back, thus releasing the trigger, which drops down, 
pei'mitting the door to close as the hen continues to enter the 
nest. This nest is one of the simplest and most satisfactory 
trapnests that can be made at home. 



52 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



The False Floor Trapnest. 

T>'?vc ere many ways of making- tiapnests, some of them 
more or less ccmplicated and depending upon the various trig- 
gers, springs, trips, etc., 
but the one shown in the 
illustration is about as 
simple as any made. The 
disadvantage this nest has 
is that the nest material 
is liable to interfere with 
the working of the false 
floor upon which it rests 
and also is liable to get 
under the false floor and 
keep it from dropping 
down under the weight of 
hen as it should. For this 
reason it would not be pronounced the best trapnest devised 
but it may be classed as one of the simplest and easiest made. 
All that is necessary to make this nest is an oblong box 
into which a light board the size of the floor is fitted. Onto 
this board is tacked a light inch strip underneath so the board 
will balance on it. Then a lever or upright bracket is nailed on 
so that it will barely hold the door up as shown in the cut. 
When the hen walks into the nest and passes back past the 
balance plate her weight pulls the lever back out from under 
the door and thus it falls into place and holds the hen until she 
has laid the coveted egg and been credited with same by the 
keeper. 




False floor trai) nei^t. 



Nesting Boxes. 

As many nests as desired may be constructed in one section. 

The illustration herewith shows four. For Leghorns, place 

the partitions twelve inches 
apart and for the larger 
breeds fourteen inches. Nail 
the partitions only to the 
roof or top and to the three- 
inch strip in front, leaving 
the bottom loose. The wall 
of the house fonns the back 
of the nests. They should 
be set against it and not 

fastened, thus making them easily removable for cleaning. 

Braces for holding the nests should be fastened against the 




BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 53 



wall as shown. If nests are much above the floor of the house 
the bottom board should be six inches beyond them in front to 
form a platform upon which the fowls can fly when getting into 
the nests. 



Troughs for Fowls. 

During the rainy days of spring or even while it is yet too 
cold to do much work outside the thoughtful poultryman will 

anticipate his n e e ds in 
troughs and fountains for 
his breeding pens and for the 
many chicks he is going to 
hatch. During these days 
while in doors many con- 
*~ ^ veniences like the one illus- 

Home made feeding trough. ^^.^^^j ^^^ ^^ ^^^^ jj^^g 

them on hand when the rush is on and when you will have time 
only to steal out a pie pan from the kitchen to feed the new 
chicks on if you haven't made enough troughs and feeders. 




Cement Nests for Hens. 

The steady rise in the price of lumber and the ever-increas- 
ing scarcity of good lumber has made the impetus of the cement 
age all the more pronounced. The encouraging feature about 
the gloomy lumber situation has been, though, that cement, as 
a general thing, has been found superior, in nearly every respect 
to lumber. Nearly everything about the farm which was form- 
erly built out of lumber is or can now be constructed from 
cement. Barns, troughs, tanks, mangers, floors and bins and 
what not built of cement are much more satisfactory than 
frame. The up-to-date poultry raiser has not been far behind 
in acknowledging the superiority of cement for poultry house 
construction. With cement floors they are much warmer in win- 
ter and cooler in summer. They are much more sanitary and 
easier to clean and they are rat and vermin proof. The time is 
not far distant when we will possibly have cement dropping 
boards and nests built with the cement walls of our hen houses, 
but thus far this has not been found practical on account of 
the bulkiness of the cement and the vast amount of tedious 
work and small moulds it would take for a house of any consid- 
erable dimensions. 

The hens should be discouraged in laying in the hen house 
during the hot summer months, anyway, providing plenty of 
cool nests are provided out about the premises. The laying and 
setting hens will find more comfort in these nests and the lice 
and mites are much easier to combat. 



54 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



The advantage of the cement nests for outdoor use is that 
they are practically indestructible, they are cool, they do not 

harbor rats, and they 
do not easily become 
infested with lice — they 
can be burnt out in a 
few moment's time and 
you are sure every nit 
and louse has been de- 
stroyed. 

The accompanying 
sketch and drawings 
show a method for 
making a cement hen's 
nest. The inner and 
juter forms consist of 
galvanized sheet ii'on 
(No. 15 B. & S. gauge), 
hinged to 1 inch boards 
for the bottom, which 
are hooked together as 
shown when the mould 
is closed ready to be 
filled. 

For the outer form a 
piece of sheet iron 41 
inches long and 15^ in. 
wide is required, and 
for the inner form a 
piece 29 inches long 
and 14 inches wide. 
Two loops are cut in 
the galvanized iron or 
riveted on to one end 
of the mould and mark- 
ed X in the drawing. 
These are placed di- 
rectly opposite each 
other as shown, so that 
a stick or rod can be 
passed through them. 
When in position this 
stick rests upon the 
outer form and holds 
the inner form up li 
inches from the back as 
^ .u 11 1 *v, 1 ,.11 ^^n the nest forms are 

Plans of the wooden base and the shell nee- 1 ,,Vi*1q Ko 

essary in making cement nests as described. piaceu On enu wnue oe- 










• 




4= 


j) 




* 


J) 


1 


1 


c 















BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



55 



ing filled with cement. The wooden base for the inner form 
consists of two 1 inch boards 6 inches long, and for the outer 
forms of two 1 inch boards H inches long and 15* inches long. 
These wooden bases are prevented from bending at the joint 
by placing a small strip or rod in under the brackets. 

The concrete should be composed of 1 part cement to not 
more than 4 parts sand or bank run gravel with no particles 
coarser than S-inch. The mixture should be of such consistency 
as will require a slight amount of tamping to force it to all 
parts of the mould. 

The outer form is first placed in position (on end) on a 
wooden pallet or floor and IJ inches of concrete then deposited. 
The inner form, with sticks thru parts z, is then set in position 
and three pieces of wood IJ inches wide (s in diagram) and 14 
inches long are placed between the inner and outer forms to act 
as spacers. 

The concrete is then deposited, and when the mould is half 
full the spacers are removed. The mould is then filled and re- 
moved to a cool, moist place to cure for seven days. At the end 
of twenty-four hours the moulds can be removed, care being 

taken not to knock off 
any corners. With a 
few moment's spare 
time each day with one 
mould enough nests 
can be made to have 
enough nests out doors 
to accommodate all the 
hens during the warm 
months. The nest can 
be placed under bushes 
and in out of the way 
places and the hens will 
enjoy them much more 
than being crowded in the hen house. The hens will not be 
so apt to hide their nests, either, when the nests are put in 
secluded and shady places. 




Cement nest as it appears when leady for 
ui^e. 



A Common Sense Window for Fresh Air Poultry- 
Houses. 



A few years ago it was quite general among our farmers 
and poultry raisers to plaster the walls of their coops and 
furnish artificial heat to induce their chickens to produce more in 



56 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



the winter months, but in recent years we have learned through 
experience that plenty of fresh air at all times is one of the 
most essential factors in successful poultry raising. 

Our agricultural colleges are teaching the raising of poul- 
try successfully with the use of fresh air poultry houses, the 
government is advocating the use of fresh air poultry houses 
in their bulletins, and uses them extensively at their experi- 
mental stations, and the most successful poultry raisers in the 
country are using the fresh air type of houses. 

Vigor and hardiness combined with proper feeding are what 
have brought the productiveness of our fowl to the maximum 
today, and without plenty of dry, fresh air we have neither 



CXTCEIOe 




.^^ 




the vigor nor the hardiness, and w'onder why our flock is not 
as productive as the flock kept under modem methods or fav- 
orable conditions. 

We will not go into detail on feeding in this article, but 
will adhere to the necessity of fresh air, and show our friends 
what we mean by fresh air construction with these drawings, 
which I have prepared as simply as possible so the man with 
the least mechanical ingenuity can grasp that which we are 
trying to show him. 

To begin with, in making a drawing to scale, we must de- 
cide upon certain dimensions, but let it be understood that the 
dimensions showTi on my drawings are for the purpose of 
illustrating only, as the type of window may vary considerably 
according to the size of the building. However, it is well to 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 57 



know that in the construction of new buildings, standard sizes 
should be taken into consideration, such as glass sizes and 
lumbei'. 

It will be noted that I have shown my wall of a height that 
enables me to use ten-foot studs, sawed in two, making the 
distance between plates five feet. The same thing should be 
taken into consideration when deciding upon the depth of a 
building, so as to use evon lengthed material without waste. 
When laying out the window opening, we miust first decide on 
how many lights we want our sash, the sash, of course, determin- 
ing the width of the opening. After glass sizes have been de- 
cided upon, we then have the width of our opening and the dis- 
tance from the floor to the sill, as it is necessary in this con- 
sti-uction to have the sill the proper height from the floor to 
allow the sash to drop down. The sash is to be hinged on the 
bottom and the muslin frame at the top, allovdng the frame to 
swing up and being held in place when open by a wire hook from 
ceiling or roof rafters. 

When the sash or frame, or both, are closed, they are to be 
held in position with barrel bolts or steel buttons, this, of course, 
being done only when weather conditions are unfavorable. 

In oi'der to eliminate a ledge from snow or water to settle 
on, it is better to tack the muslin on the outside of the frame, 
which will form a smooth surface for the rain or condensation 
to run down onto the galvanized drip. The galvanized iron drip 
is important in the construction of this window, as it is for the 
purpose of carrying away all water that would othei-wise follow 
the rabbet of the meeting rail and get inside the coop. Make 
a saw cut the full length of the bottom of the muslin frame 
to receive the edge or drip and tack or nail the face of drip 
to frame as shown in detail. Be sure to locate drip so it wll 
not interfere \\'ith sash and frame when opening. 

Should the size of this window be increased considerably, 
I would suggest making the sash and frame of heavier material 
to eliminate warping, and place a fastener in center to hold 
sash and frame together when closed. I would also use four 
hinges instead of three as shown. The entire opening is to be 
covered on the outside "with wire netting tacked to the window 
frame. 



Drinking Vessels for Fowls. 

Too little care is given the fowls in providing them with 
clean, pure drinking water. All observing breeders of poultry 
have found that it pays to give the fowls only the best whole- 
some feed. They have noticed that the egg supply has increased 



58 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 




materially after such treament; but many have forgotten that 
the principal part of the egg, as well as of the fowl itself is 
water. Pure fresh water then is of vital importance. 

As a practical experiment, if you do not believe water plays 
an important part in the life and health of the fowl, try giving 

the fowls tainted or stagnant 
water for a few days and 



notice how quickly the eggs 
become tainted and strong 
and unfit for use. Keep the 
water supply entirely away 
from the fowls for one whole 
day, and note how few eggs 
are gathered the next day. 
Reason how much better con- 
dition the fowls must be in 
by having plenty of cool wa- 
ter during the hot summer 
days, and water with the 

DrinkinK vessel made froni candy butket.^j^jji ^^^^^ ^^ during freez- 
ing weather, by thinking of a really warm day last summer 
when you could not get a drink just for one hour. 

There are many devices and fountains on the market, but 
the two illustrations given here show how the flock may be 
watered in a sanitary way for a trifle or no cost. The feature 

shown about these methods 
of watering is that the de- 
vices are simple and neat and 
^an be easily and speedily 
cleaned. 

A candy bucket is cut down 
to the proper height in the 
one mstance and a lid fasten- 
ed to it by a couple of screen 
door hooks to keep the fowls 
^ from overturning it. Little 
chicks cannot get in and 
drown and the water is in the 
shade. 

DrinkinK vessel made from cheese box. ^^ ^^^ ^^j^^^. JHustration 

a cheese box is gotten from the grocery, the bottom removed 
and the slats arranged as shown in the sketch, and the ar- 
rangement set over a gallon crock. You cannot imagine how 
convenient this fountain is until you try one. 




BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



59 



The Sprouting Frame. 

In the majority of suburban and village poultry yards it is 
an impossibility to have the poultry runs sodded dowTi to grass 
or clover, as they are too small to permit this. The runs must 
be so large as to almost afford the fowls free range to keep them 
from destroying all the sod if the yards are sodded to begin 

with. The lawn clip- 
pings make excellent 
green food during the 
spring and early sum- 
mer, but somehow the 
fowls tire of them and 
they seem to become 
tough and unpalatable. 
You can make your 
bare poultry run pro- 
duce fine succulent 
green food in a few 
days, provided it is not 
covered with cinders or 
ashes and is rich and fertile as poultry-runs generally are. Make 
a frame any desired length and width and about six or eight 
inches high, as showTi in the illustration. Cover the top of it 
with one or one-half inch wire netting, being careful to get it 
on very tight, so it will hold up the weight of the fowls and 
not sag much. To keep the top from sagging much the frames 
should not be made over three feet wide. Spade up a plot the 
same size as your frame in the yard where the sun will shine 
most of the time. Pulverize the ground thoroly, as a quick 
growth depends upon this. Soak the oats twenty-four hours 
and after it is sown, rake it in thoroly. If it is watered regularly 
it will be scarcely no time until it is up and in the course of 
two or three weeks high enough that an occasional blade will 
grow thru the wire. The fowls cannot kill it while thus pro- 
tected by the wire, but it will not grow above the wire you 
may be sure. 




Wire top frame for growing giecn food for 
chicks and fowls. 



Breaking UP Broody Hens. 

Owners of flocks of the Mediterranean class — Leghorns 
and Minorcas — will not be annoyed so much by the sitting hen, 
but all the heavier varieties in which the sitting instinct has not 
been bred out, attempt to sit after each clutch of eggs has been 
laid. Some of the meat breeds — the Brahmas, Cochins and the 
Langshans — insist so persistently in sitting that it is often 



60 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 





a hard matter to break them 
up even when confined in an 
empty crate or box. 

There are several other 
ways of breaking up the sit- 
ting hen besides the ordin- 

Tying a broody hen with string attached ary method of COOping them 
to leather band around the leg. ^p jj^ ^ ^^^^ Qne unique 

method is to make a yoke out out of a small forked sappling 

similar to the yoke used on fence breaking cattle. With this 

yoke about their neck the hen cannot remain on the nest with 

any degree of comfort, but 

she can manage to eat. 
A hen that is very 

persistent in sitting may 

be tied out under a tree 

\vith a soft cord for two 

or three days where she 

cannot find anything to 

roost or sit upon except 

the ground. Care should 

be taken to use something 

soft to attach to the leg. 

A leather band, as shown 

in the illustration here- 
with is very satisfactory. 

Where there are a great many sitting hens to break up, a 

double compartment fowl shipping coop hung from the roof of 

a shed or from the limb of 
a tree in the poultry run 
and the broody hens con- 
fined in it, will break them 
up quicker than any other 
method. The broody hen 
will often attempt to sit 
in the dark corner of the 
ordinary stationary crate, 
but as the hen moves 
about in the crate hung 
from a wire it swings, 
causing the hen to think 
— if such the hen can do 
— more about keeping her 
balance than of sitting. 
Water should be given the 
broody hens, together with 
a scant supply of food 
"•. ' ' '- , ,^ /" , .,,. , during the two or three 

This coop breaks the hen of sitting and ^Imro ^-P -i-i^^Jt. ^ -fi- 

does it in a humane way and in a much "^^^ ^^ ^heir COnfme- 
shorter time than other methods. ment. 



The "yoke" plan of breaking a hen of 
silting. 




BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



61 



The Richmond Hopper. 

Recently while on a trip I met an old friend who in turn 
introduced me to a traveling man friend of his. It was but a 
few moments until the con- 
versation drifted to chickens 
and I found the traveling 
man an enthusiastic fancier. 
It is an old axiom that goes 
something like this: "Every 
one has some redeeming 
quality," and I apply this to 
my everyday life with this 
version, "We can get valu- 
able information and lessons 
from every one we meet and 
see." It depends much, tho, 
how you go about it to be 
benefited by everyone and it 
IS as much of an art -o be 
able to acquire knowledge 
than it is to impart knowl- 
edge. 

On this trip the traveling 
man gave me an idea with a 

rough sketch on the back of an en- 
velope of a feed hopper that I have 
found since to be all that he, in 
his enthusiasm as embryo inventor, 
claimed for it. The great difference 
between the hopper and all others 
which I liave ever sftn or maclo 
is that it keeps the feed working 
to the front while the others keep 
shelving it back away from the 
fowls. The dimensions do not need 
to be given, as they are plain 
enough in inches in the profile dia- 
gram. Try one or two of these 
hoppers as an experiment, and see 
how admirably they work. You 
can probably find a box at the gro- 
cery which will just answer the 
purpose. 





62 BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



Caring for Eggs for Incubation. 

To the average person raising poultry only as a side lin*^ 
on a few feet of back-yard on the back lot, it is hardly expedient 
to set hens before the first of April. The earth then will have 
had time to warm a little in our northern latitudes, before the 
chicks are hatched, and they will mature so much casioi' and 
faster under the later favorable conditions. 

It is well, tho, to plan ahead and decide how many young 
chicks we intend to raise during the season and be thoroly pre- 
pared. To have fertile, strong eggs we must have vigorous 
parent stock, and to have chicks full of vitality we must have 
strong, fertile eggs. Much depends, too, on the care of the egg 
after it is laid and before it is placed under the hen. 

Eggs for hatching can not be removed from the nest too 
carefully. They should not be placed in a large basket with a lot 
of other eggs. This often causes a very small crack, so minute 
that it can hardly be seen until the eggs have been under the 
hen several days and become soiled. 

The hands that gather the eggs should be clean and free 
especially from any oily or greasy substance as the oil will 
surely enter the pores of the eggshell, thus smothering the germ, 
within. In going about from one nest to another and opening 
and closing doors we are most likely to jar the ba.sket in which 
we are carrying the eggs, more than we realize, and enough to 
jar several germs from their web-like mooring between the yolk 
and white of the egg. During severe cold weather the egg 
should not remain in the nest until it becomes chilled or be re- 
moved from a warm nest out into an open basket and carried 
about in the cool breezes of the evening for several minutes 
while gathering eggs. It is more advisable to gather the eggs 
three or four times a day during cold weather. The shell of 
the egg should be observed from time to time and care taken 
that the fowls are supplied with oyster shell at all times if the 
eggshells are inclined to be thin and fragile. Eggs not well pro- 
portioned or with a rough surface should not be saved for set- 
ting and you should know whether your exceptionally good hen 
is laying a nice smooth egg. 

Low, flat wooden trays or boxes make ideal receptacles in 
which to gather the eggs before setting them. The box should 
be lined with three or four thicknesses of newspaper, as paper 
is a nonconductor of heat and the eggs will not be affected by 
rapid changes in temperature so readily. It is much better to 
place one layer of eggs over the bottom of the tray, as then 
they can be easily turned each day. To turn the eggs, lay a 
r^w of them to one side and gently roll the rest over to their 
place and in this way the eggs will have been turned just half 
over, so that the part that was at the boottm the day before is 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



now at the top. Paper makes a very good covering for the eggs, 
too. If they are left to the open air for ten days in a dwelling 
they will dry out more than were they left in a nest in the 
natural state built upon the moist earth. The temperature at 
which they are kept should be about 60 degrees Fahrenheit. 
Eggs of extraordinary fertility may be kept two weeks safely. 



A Home Made Feed Hopper. 

The hopper method of feeding poultry has proven one of the 
most successful devised during recent years. Many of the largest 
poultry plants, as well as the great army of back yard fanciers, 
are adopting it to the exclusion of all other systems. 

It has been generally acknowledged that fowls thrive bet- 
ter when given free range and Avhen they have an unlimited 
variety of food and can choose the morsels that happen to be 
appetizing at the time. Following this theory, poultrymen have 
attempted to provide their fowls with a complete variety of food 
and have it where they could get at it at all times. In at- 
tempting this the chief difficulty has been in keeping the food 
before them at all times without waste. The fowls persist in 
pulling the food out upon the ground whenever the feed box is 
so constructed that they cannot possibly do this. 

The hen hopper has been an invitation to English sparrows 
and rats to make the poultry quarters their home. Cement 
floors and foundations will generally stop the rat nuisance, and 
if the feed hopper is placed in the poultry house sparrows will 
seldom bother it. 

A very satisfactory hopper that will feed and not waste 
grain may be easily made from a soap box or small shoe box 
at a trifling cost. 

The dimensions of the box shown in the illustration are not 
important, as far as height and width go, but the depth should 
invariably be from 11 to 12 inches. The hopper shown is made 
from an ordinary shoe box and is 12 inches deep and the same 
in width and about two feet high. This makes the hopper large 
enough to hold feed for a large flock. 

After removing the side of the box which formed the lid, 
take out one end of the box. Place the lid in the position 
shown by the dotted line in the side view diagram, letting the 
bottom come to within four inches of the bottom and to about six 
inches from the front of the box. Take six inches of the piece 
that came out of the end of the box and tack it on in front at 
the bottom. This contrivance allows the feed to come down 
so it cannot clog and gives the space for the fowls to put their 
heads in and eat. but as the front is six inches high the birds 
cannot raise the feed over the front to waste it. 



64 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



The lid of the hopper should be made quite slantinj?, so that 
the fowls cannot perch upon it. A piece should be tacked upon 

the back extending 8 or 
10 inches above the 
back, to which a board 
wide enough to cover 
the top of the hopper is 
attached with leather 
hinges. 

The hoppers may be 
made in all sizes, from 
single ones six inches 
in width to three-com- 
partment ones two to 
three feet in width, but 
all must be 11 to 12 
inches deep from front 
to back to work prop- 
erly. 

One hopper should be 
provided for grit, one 
for bran, one for chop 
feed, one for beef 
scraps, and one, in fact, 
for all the different 




Feod hoiijier, ni;ido fiom a wooilcn shoe box. 



foods which should be before the fowls. 

For the busy man with a small flock the hopper method of 
feeding the fowls is the solution to the vexing question how to 
get the fowls fed often enough and at the right time each day. 
especially during winter. Many men go to work eaz'ly in the 
morning and do not return until late in the evening. In these 
hoppers feed can be placed to last two or three days, or even 
longer. The fowls are released from the house early in the 
morning and watered and a little grain scattered in the straw 
to keep them busy and the drinking vessel is filled. All that 
is necessary in the evening is to gather the eggs and lock the 
house. 



Successfully Shipping Eggs for Incubation. 

How the eggs are packed for shii)ment is quite an important 
factor. It is one of the most important, I have found, for egg^ 
as a rule are fertile, and the buyer, as a rule has had experience 
in hatching eggs to some extent at least and therefore between 
two experienced men it is a question of handling between and 
how they are packed for the handling. 

I am convinced the better the egg box the poorer receptacle 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 65 



it is for shipping eggs for hatching. The expressmen of this 
country have learned by sight all the best egg boxes and know 
they will stand the weight of a man without breaking. Ihey 
therefore throw Ihcm with imy:)unity as they know they will land 
in the car, on the truck or platform, in good shape, as far as 
all outside appearances are concerned. Watch eggs being hand- 
led at some important transfer point in the busy season and 
you will agree with me. It used to be that eggs for hatching 
in boxes had to be handled with care but the manufacturers of 
boxes have so improved them that the average box could be 
dropped fi'om the second story window without injuring the 
box or breaking the egg — but, alas, with the germ! 

I like a good egg-box. No one admires a good box more 
than I and I believe they have their place, but from costly ex- 
perience I have found it does not pay to intrust them openly to 
the expressman. Nothing beats a basket, I have found, and the 
place for the box is in a basket. A basket cannot be handled 
very roughly without being broken and the price of the eggs 
comes out of that particular expressman's pocket when the 
checking-up time comes. Eg.gs packed in a basket are not nearly 
as safe as when they are lirst packed in a box and then the 
box placed in a basket. 

When eggs are packed separately in a ba.sket, yoti will find 
each egg gets the benefit of the jar given the basket, but first 
pack the eggs in a box and the box in a basket, ard the i r x 
of eggs is like a bi'ick in a basket cf .'^trr-w. Shn^'o 'hr ba^-rt 
all you please, the box by its compact, heavy weight, juggles 
about like a cork on water, never once getting the benefit of a 
sudden or quick jolt. 

I have seen people pack eggs in boxes with bran, sawdust, 
and what not. The eggs arrived unbroken but a poor hatch 
resulted, because every egg was packed in so firmly that every 
iar and iolt of the box was directly transmitted to the eggs 
just as the tap, tap, of the dentist's hammer is directly trans- 
mitted to your sensitive tooth thru th" medium of a little chisel. 
The germ of the eggs is just as sensitive as your sore tooth. 

Candy buckets, and other buckets I have also seen used. 
The eggs were packed in oats or bran or rice hulls and they were 
packed so well and the bucket was such a good bucket that the 
expressman i:new he could handle it just about as he pleased 
without br ; king the bucket and as long as the bucket did not 
break tho eggs were safe. That is the wrong principle upon 
which to jhip eg<Ts. Pack them securely in a box so the eggs 
will be heavv and compact in the center. Then pack the box 
in a frail nick'^l market basket or bushel basket, as the case 
might be, packed in chaff or straw and covei'ed over tightly 
with cloth. The package appears frail and this is the impression 
you must make with the expressman all along the line — but it 



66 BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



is deceiving and not frail, because it puts the expressman on 
his guard with the result that the eggs arrive safely. 

I have known instances where eggs in patented boxes, after 
three successive trials, could not be shipped thru three states 
so they would hatch, but when shipped as above directed had 
nine to hatch. I have known other cases, to my personal knowl- 
edge, where eggs were shipped a thousand miles and every egg 
hatched but one; another time all but two and cases like these 
are without number. In my case it has come to b^ that I can 
almost instantly tell whether eggs have been packed right at 
a glance, as there are only two ways — a I'ight and wrong — 
and it is like thumping a watermelon to see if it is ripe, only 
it is much easier to tell if a shipment has been packed right 
or not. 

If I were buying eggs for hatching I would not buy th"m 
unless they were packed on their sides, each egg wrapped and 
packed securely in a box and the box in a basket of straw or 
chaff. If the buyer of eggs would only consider, even if he had 
to pay 25 cents additional, that he was eliminating a vast 
amount of chance from the transaction, to have his eggs packed 
first in the best egg box obtainable and then in a basket. 

I am convinced that eggs should not be shipped on end. 
Nature does not place them on end and it is an unnatural posi- 
tion and the web holding the germ is constantly on a strain in 
this position. This is often the cause of a poor iiatch. j he web 
holding the germ is strung from end to end and when the egg 
is placed on end the web becomes taut and is easily broken. 
Place the egg on its side and the germ rests in the web like a 
hammock. Plain, isn't it ? Never thought of it that way before, 
though. 



Coops for Hens and Chicks. 

The hen expected to raise a large brood of chicks should be 
provided with the best quarters possible. The coop should 
admit plenty of sunshine, should be wind, water, and vemiin 
proof. It should be cozy and dry and afford easy access to all 
parts for cleaning and caring for the little chicks. The floor 
should be near enough the ground that the little chicks after 
getting out can easily find their way back and yet far enough 
off of the surface of the ground to insure dryness and prevent 
the harboring of rats. Th'^ coop should not be cumbersome or 
elaborate, yet it is advisable to build it substantially. 

The box shaped coop shown in the illustration is well adapt- 
ed to the needs of the small fancier with only a few broods to 
raise in his back yard, during the spring, or the large poultry 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



67 










JiL 









//, * 



f^lM. 



Coop for hen and chicks. 

raiser who raises large number of chicks with hens. It is 
built on the open colony type plan. 

The coop is 36 inches long by 18 inches wide, and 18 inches 
high in the rear and 24 inches high in front. It is divided into 
two compartments, making each compartment 18 inches square. 
Using these dimensions, even length lumber may be used with 
scarcely any waste. The two side walls and back are made 
tight fitting, and it is well to cover them with roofing paper, 
if tongue and groove siding is not used. The roof should be 
of light pine lumber covered with roofing material. Shingles 




The modernized "A" coop. 



68 BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



are not adapted to this coop, or any coop or poultry house for 
that matter, as they require too steep an angie, thus requiring 
additional lumber, and, also, they harbor lice. All roofs for 
any kinds of poultry houses should be as flat as possible to hold 
the warmth down next to the fowls during the winter, and the 
same applies to cooping hens and chicks. 

The compartment in which the hen is confined is to the 
left, and is divided from the one to the right by slats. The dotted 
lines represent the door, which is hinged at the bottom in front 
of this compartment, and acts as a platform in front of the 
coop during the day, and at night as a tight fitting door, exclud- 
ing rain, wind, and rats alike. One or more of the slats in front 
should be made loose fitting, so the hen may be released. 

The compartment to the right, or sun parlor, is fronted 
with a door covered with one-half inch mesh wire netting, which 
will exclude cats and weasels. A little trap door is made di- 
rectly above the wire door, sho\\Ti partly open in the illustration, 
and thru which the feed and water is given to the chicks early 
in the morning before the dew is off the grass and while they 
should yet be confined. The little fellows cannot slip past your 
hand when fed thru this dooi', as they do so often, to our great 
annoyance, when a door is opened near the floor thru which to 
feed them. In this sun parlor the chicks can be fed the small 
chick food and delicate morsels too expensive to fill the old 
hen's crop with. The little chicks can feed here early in the 
m'oraing on rainy days, and when it is too cold to let them out, 
unmolested. The hen is fed whole corn at the same time, and 
cannot trample or bother the chicks. When the dew is off the 
grass, and the chicks old enough to be given the run, the 
door-platform in front of the hen's apartment is dropped to 
the ground, and the chicks get out into the open directlv from 
the mother hen's compartment while the hen is confined. This 
makes a most admirable and convenient way for caring for the 
hen and her brood. For convenience, the fioor may be made 
to drop out and the roof hinged. 

The second illustration of a coop for hen and chicks is one 
of the old fashioned "A" coops modernized. The frame work in 
front is covered with one-inch wire netting, and in this part 
the chicks may be fed apart from the hen, and given a grassy 



The Setting of the Hen. 

Many people who have been about chickens for years know 
no more about setting a hen properly than they did when on the 
farm these many years ago. They like to tell how many 
chickens mother used to raise. But years soften their memory 
and they forget how many she did not raise and how many just 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 69 



raised themselves and how many hens took this duty upon 
themselves and brought forth a brood in nature's way. 

Again I cannot do better than to refer you to nature. The 
common domestic fowl is certainly a fowl belonging to the land. 
Not a bird of the air. So watch the common domestic hen in an 
isolated farming district pick out her nest, and invariably you 
will find she picks it upon the mother earth where there is 
straw and chaff with which to line the nest. You have noticed 
how the hen has that instinct sent down thru all these ages 
of throwing small straws up over her back and letting them 
slide down cozily about where they will. Occasionally a hen will 
take to the hay mow, but this does not prove the rule untrue 
that the hen is a land fowl. It only shows that she is bewildered 
by her long association with man in domestication and has not 
followed the dictates of nature. 

I would like to have the eggs wasted each year through 
faulty nesting conditions. I would have enough to retire on I 
am sure. Instead of man giving the hen a natural position in 
a natural suiTounding he is just as liable to make a nest in a 
deep excelsior box and have the hen jump down in the nest. 
What happens? The hen soon breaks an egg and after that 
it is only a question of a few days until the whole lot is ruined. 

Many make the mistake of placing the eggs in a brand new 
nest. I have scruples against this plan. I like old nesting 
material that has been used by the laying hens. It seems more 
like nature would have it. A deep nest of new straw or any 
other material gives too much ventilation to the nest and ac- 
coimts for many failures. 

The best way to set a hen is to place the nest in a cheese 
]-ing or low box where the hen can walk directly onto the eggs 
without jumping down on them. During the early part of the 
spring it is well to have a bottom in the nest container, but 
after the middle of April in our latitude I knock out the bot- 
toms and have the nest directly upon the ground in a nice 
secluded place where air and light can enter. Many times I 
scoop out a little hollow in the eailh and have no box of any 
kind. The hen Avill attend to keeping every twig and straw 
within many inches around snugly in her nest. Set in this 
manner the hen will attend to business and seldom breaks an 
egg. I change hens about and never set the hens where they 
wanted to set in the first place. I give them the eggs at night 
and cover them over with a good roomy box and then do not 
bother them until the second day. The first three days are the 
most critical and you have over half of this time gone already. 
Watch that the hen gets back on her nest and you can cover her 
up again once or twice and by that time she will go back without 
any trouble. Too many people fuss and worry too much with 
their setting hens. First place them in a quiet secluded place. 



70 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



Don't fool them with glass eggs, but place confidence in the hen 
and your judgment that she surely wants to set. Then give her 
a full set of eggs and cover her up and kept thus in the dark 
she will stick right to business, and as I said above, very shoitly 
will go right back to her nest and no moie trouble out of hei 
until the chicks hatch. 

The food the hen gets is important. Don't feed soft feeds. 
Feed hard grains only. There is nothing better than corn. 
Have plenty of grit and water before them, also a dust ba'ch. 
Keep free of lice and v^ith this kind of treatment where she can 
get a full feed of corn once a day unmolested, you will take 
the hen off the nest in good condition and with a full nest of 
chicks. Do not again make the mistake of setting the hens in 
a deep box or in too much new deep stiaw, but let the hen have 
some choice in the matter and vou will fare better. 



Drinking Fountain for Chicks. 

It is important that the little chicks have plenty of pure 
fresh drinking water at all times. It is not always easy to pro- 
vide it, however, especially when the chicks are supplied water 

in the ordinary way — from a shal- 
low saucer or tin pan. The saucer 
of clean water becomes dirt laden 
in a very few moments as the 
chickens play about in it. If filthy 
drinking water is allowed to re- 
main before the chicks any length 
of time they will invariably fall a 
prey to some ailments to which 
they are subject while young. 

Drinking vessels .should be thor- 
oly cleaned once a day and scalded 
at least once a week with a little 
soda added to the watei\ Galvan- 
ized tin or earthenware vessels are 
the best. The larger the vessel, 
especially for adult fowls, the bet- 
ter — the water remains cool much 
longer. In warm weather the 
drinking vessel should be set in a cool, shady place and never 
where the direct rays of the sun fall upon it. The water in 
the little chicks' vessels should be changed four or five times a 
day and in that of the adult fowls at least twice a day during 
the summer months. 

Instead of using an open saucer or i)an for a watering ves- 




Tin can drinking fountain for 

fowls. 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 71 



sel a water fountain can be provided at small cost. Gallon and 
two-gallon containers are the best sizes for adult fowls. A very 
satisfactory inverted fountain for the little chicks can be made 
from a tomato can by 
punching a few ho^p.s 
around the edge of the 
can near the top and 
after filling it and in- 
verting the saucer over 
it, quickly turning it up 
with the saucer under- 
neath as shown in the 
illustration. Only a 

small amount of water ^.i^^,-,^^ fountain for little chicks. Made 
IS in view at one tline from tin cans as described in accompanying 

tind yet as it is used article. 

up the saucer is continuously refilled to the top of the holes in 

the tin can. 

Another very simple way of making a drinking fountain 
for the little chicks which have a fondness for getting into the 
water with their feet is by taking a pound baking powder can 
with lid fitting down over the can and push a dent in one side 
as shown in the illustration. The can is filled with water, 
the lid placed over it and the can inverted. 




Moisture and Ventilation in Incubators. 

It is important that eggs placed in the incubator be in- 
cubated under conditions as nearly natural as possible. The 
fact that an incubator hatches a fair percentage of the chicks 
from the eggs placed in the machine should not be taken as 
evidence that the incubator is a great success and the equal of 
the hen. Many incubators hatch the eggs but do it in an un- 
natural way and the chicks are weaklings and soon fall prey to 
some disease and die. A fair percentage of the chicks hatched 
in an incubator, even if they are improperly incubated, can be 
raised to maturity if placed with hens, or the chicks may be 
hatched under a hen and raised in the crudest kind of a brooder 
and many of them \\nll reach maturity. But if hatched in a 
poor incubator and then a poor brooder, the task wll be difficult 
if not impossible. 

Keeping the lamp well filled and clean and the wick trim- 
med and the temperature at the proper degree will not always 
insure a good hatch, although strong and fertile eggs are used. 
The problem of getting sufficient ventlation and moisture is an 
important factor and one that must be worked out entirely by 



72 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



Ce U 



the operator. Evaporation goes on naore rapidly in thin shelled 
eggs than in thick ones. The atmosphere absorbs more mois- 

^^^ ture in the summer 

Ce u -^ ^^^H^^ than in the early spring 

and thus a machine 
tliat hatches well in the 
spj'ing without being 
supplied with moisture 
will lequire some if it 
is operated in the late 
spring and summer. The 
machine that is venti- 
lated with a sufficient 
amount of pure air will 
dry off the eggs much 
faster than the machine 
that is not ventilated 
so well. But neither 
machine will hatch 
properly without the 
right amount of venti- 
lation and moisture. 
Possibly more machines 
make poor hatches for 
want of moistui-e than 
because of an over 
abundance of it. 

If an egg, con- 
taining a live chick, be opened on the eighteenth day of incu- 
bation, the chick will be found to be full sized, but the yolk of 
the egg will be lying loosely, encircled by a netting of bloody 
vessels. During the last twelve hours before the chick breaks 
the shell, the yolk passes bodily into the chick. It is the chick's 
principal nourishment for the first two or three days of its life 
and is gradually absorbed. This is the reason chicks just hatched 
do not need food during the first forty-eight hours. In fact, 
food is not good for them during this time. When the eggs in 
the incubator are dried out too much duinng incubation, the 
yolk gives up a certain amount of moisture, with the result that 
it becomes waxy and cannot be readily assimilated by the chick 
which consequently dies in a few days. 'I'he non-absorption of 
the yolk makes the chick appeal' even larger than it should 
and this fact deceives many into thinking that the little fellows 
are so nice and large and therefore, healthy. Whenever the 
temperature of the incubator is permitted to rise above 103 
Fahrenheit several degrees and remain any length of time or 
until the eggs are warmed thru to that temperature causing 
rapid evaporation, the same conditions arise as when there is an 
insufficient amount of moisture during the whole hatch. 





Illustratii.i.; 



of air cells as described in ac- 
companying article. 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 73 



With the evaporation of the egg through the pores in the 
shell the air cell in the large end of the egg becomes lai'ger. 
The air cell in the egg may be easily seen by placing the egg 
at the end of a paper tube and looking thru it at a strong 
light. An egg set under a hen under natural conditions con- 
tains the approximate amount of air space during the dif- 
ferent periods of the hatch indicated by the dark portion of the 
diagn-am. By testing several eggs an average can be taken and 
by consulting the diagram shown on this page, it can be deter- 
mined whether the eggs have a proper amount of moisture or 
not. The air cell will seldom extend directly across the egg, 
but generally in a diagonal line. The egg should be turned over 
and over while being tested, to determine the full size of the air 
chamber. 

Late hatches require moisture from the first day the eggs 
are in the incubator. There are several ways of applying mois- 
ture in the egg chamber. A flat pan, covering almost the entire 
floor under the egg tray, filled with sand and kept moist is a 
very satisfactory way. Two or three bricks which have been 
soaked in water will answer very well, or a damp cloth may be 
placed over the eggs. Warm watei' should always be used and 
the sand and bricks warmed before being placed in the machine. 
Otherwise the temperature will fall rapidly and remain low until 
the brick or sand has had time to warm. If the sand tray is 
used it may remain in the egg chamber during the whole hatch 
and warm water poured over whenever the sand dries. A 
hundred-egg machine will require several quarts of water during 
the progress of the hatch, and especially in dry weather and 
during the summer. The writer is waiting to see the miachine 
that will hatch as strong and liveable chicks without moisture 
as the old hen which steals her nest out upon the ground in the 
grass or fence corner — all oi' many claims to the contrary. 



Hatching Eggs in Incubators. 

The incubator has long since passed out of the experimental 
stage, as far as practicability is conceraed, and the incubator 
has so successfully vied with the hen as to almost deprive her 
of her favorite occupation. Nevertheless, all the incubator man- 
ufacturers are continually seeking to improve their machines 
so that, although we have not seen the perfect machine, some 
are almost so. Almost any of the numerous makes on the mar- 
ket today will produce fair results under favorable conditions. 

The mechanism and heating and ventilating devices and 
appliances differ in each make of machine. The instructions 
sent out with each machine should be studied carefully, there- 
fore, and, though you may have operated the machine a season 



74 BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



or two before each hatch the instructions should be reread. If 
the instructions have been misplaced, don't fail to send for 
more before attempting to use it again. Many know so much 
about incubatoi's in general and of every make that they think 
it useless waste of time to read the instiuctions and this is often 
the cause of a machine not working properly. The manufacturer 
is glad to co-operate with his customers to assist in getting the 
best results and a good name for his incubator. 

A room for the location of the incubator should be selected 
in which a moderately even temperature can be maintained. A 
room containing a stove, as a rule, is not a suitable place, as it 
varies too much and is too warm. A room adjoining that con- 
taining the stove is better. It must be remembered, too, that 
stoves often emit fumes. These must be guarded against; so, 
also, must drafts be prevented. 

The idea prevails that the cellar is the best place in which 
to operate the incubator, but the great majority of the cellars 
are wholly unfit for such purpose, especially at this time of the 
yeai'. After the cellar has been aiied several weeks and the 
atmosphere outside is warm, it may be safely used. At this 
t;me of the year have the incubator placed wheie thei-e is plenty 
of fresh air and sunshine. 

It is well to start the machine at least two days before the 
opei-ator intends to place the eggs in it. Care must be taken 
not to fill the hot water machines too full at the first filling. 
Wai-m rain water should be used. The lamp in both the hot 
water and the hot air machines should be stalled low and grad- 
ually increased. 'J'he damper over the lamp should be raised 
just a little from the start to make draft for the flame and pre- 
vent smoking. Evejy half hour or so the regulator will have 
to be released a little more until the temperature reaches 100 
degrees Fahrenheit. It will not have to be released to i-each 103 
degrees. The lamp bowl and burner cannot be kept too clean. 
If the lamp makes fumes at any time, it is because the bowl and 
burner are not clean. If the smallest amount of oil is left on 
any part of the lamp, the heat from the flame will soon cause 
the oil to evaporate or turn to a gas, and this is the odor we 
often detect where keiosene lamps are used and not kept scrup- 
ulously clean. 

A new wick should be used for each hatch, and the chan-ed 
part scraped off with a match or blunt stick each evening. 
Cutting with sheai's pinches the wick too much. Far more 
satisfactory results are obtained from the best grade of incu- 
bator oil. It makes a clean flame and burns without flickering. 
Never try to be so saving as to try to regulate the machine to 
such a fine point as to cause the damper to fit down tight, 
as the best oil and lamp will then smoke. Should the tank be- 
come covered with soot it should be wiped off and polished, or 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 75 



you will find it difficult to keep up the temperature. Soot is a 
nonconductor of heat. 

The eggs should be placed in the tray with the small ends 
pointing downward and all in the same direction. Too much 
care can not be exercised in running the incubator the first four 
days. If the temperature goes up several degrees a poor hatch 
Aviil result. If anything, run the machine low the first four days 
— 102 degrees is high enough. 

On the seventh day the eggs should be tested to discover the 
infertile ones. All clear ones should be removed and the 
doubtful ones mai'kcd and tested again two days later. After 
the fourth day the eggs should be turned twice a day, preferably 
with the hands. The eggs need not be turned until the end of 
the second day. See to it, however, that an even temperature 
is maintained. 

On the fourteenth day the eggs may be again tested and all 
eggs that have a small black speck in them and seem dead 
should be removed. It is always best to remove the infertile 
eggs. Fresh eggs should not be placed in the bad eggs' places 
or eggs piled on top of one another to get more in the incuba- 
tor. A hen or two can be set the same time the incubator is 
started and her eggs used to fill up the machine after the in- 
fertile eggs have been removed. The temperature should be 
kept as near 103 as possible after the fourth day. 



Caring: for Incubator Chicks. 



'to 



The eggs in the incubator should be turned for the last 
time on the eighteenth day and the thermometer placed in a 
position where it will not be displaced by the hatching chicks. 
The ventilators should bo opened as wide as possible and the 
temperature maintained at 103 degrees or a little above. As 
the hatch progresses it will be noticed that the lamp must be 
turned lower and lower each day and while the eggs are hatch- 
ing scarcely any flame at all is required. This is caused by the 
chicks themselves supplying a great deal of heat. 

White eggs will generally hatch a day earlier than the 
bro\\'Ti and fresh eggs hatch sooner than older ones. White 
eggs, if fresh, when placed in the incubator and the temperature 
kept a little high during the hatch will begin to pip on the 
eighteenth day. The hatch is not as successful, though, as when 
the eggs pip on the nineteenth or twentieth day. When the in- 
cubator has been allowed to cool off once or twice and the tem- 
perature during the hatch to fall below 103 degrees the eggs 
will not pip until the twenty-first day. 

It is a most interesting sight to watch the hatch through 
the glass door of an incubator. The shell is pierced by the 



76 BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYI\lEN 



chick's bill near where the circun?feronce of the egg is the 
greatest. Instead of a large crack appearing in the shell like 
when the shell is cracked from some outward force, a small hole 
is made by the bill and is seldom more than a quarter of an 
inch across. Through this small hole the chick obtains air in 
abundance and, after waiting and resting several minutes, during 
which time it has been growing stronger on the oxygen taken 
into its body, struggles a little within the shell and the egg 
probably shakes a little if not held fast by the suiTounding eggs. 
As a result of the struggle the chick changes its position and 
its bill again comes in contact with unbroken shell and soon 
it has cracked away another portion of the shell, and so on it 
struggles in its spiral motion within its prison until it has made 
a wide hole all the \\ay around the egg or nearly so, when, with 
a sudden display of strength, the cap of the egg, or cell, breaks 
away and the chick finds itself free. The little wet chick will 
sti-uggle in a very frantic way for a moment and to those im- 
accustomcd to the sight it nxay seem that the chick is a freak 
and will never gain control of its body. But, aftei- lying still 
for another moment, it will suddenly open its mouth to obtain 
more air and then sti-ugglo again. After it has dried off thor- 
oughly it ^\•^ll soon gain control of its legs and begin to walk 
about.' Then, if at any time, is when the little fluffy ball is the 
prettiest. Should you weigh it and the shell from which it came 
you will find that it weighs somewhat less than the ogg did 
when first placed in the incubator. This is because of the 
evaporation of the egg thiough the pores of the shell during 
incubation. 

The incubator should ne\or be opencul while the chicks are 
hatching as the cold air striking the egg just broken or the little 
chick just out. chills it, and, in the one case the chick is so 
weakened that it never frees itself from the shell, and in the 
other the chick dies. Only in rare cases where the weather has 
been very dry and moistuie has not been supplied in sufficient 
quantities to the incubator will the chicks need any assistance 
in breaking the shell. The chicks that are too weak to free 
themselves from the shell seldom live or make strong chicks if 
they do live, when helped out artificially. 

After a chick is hatched the empty shell fretiuently lodges 
over an unhatched egg. If a visit is made to the incubator every 
half hour or so this can be easily prevented. In this case the 
door must of course be opened but it can be accomplished very 
speedily if you will try. 

As the first three days the eggs are in the incubatoi- are the 
most critical, so the first few da>s of the chick's life are the 
most critical. Too much caution cannot be used. In the great 
majority of cases many of the chicks die a week or two weeks 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



after being hatched the cause was impropei' care the first three 
or four clays. 

There is no better place for the chicks the first two days 
than in the incubator itself. After removing the shells and 
placing the thermometer in the tray \\nth the chicks and a piece 
of newspaper for a carpet on the tiay, the incubator may be 
closed and the temperature gradually lowered to 90 degrees or 
a little above. The chicks need no further care until thirty-six 
hours after the last chick was hatched. They have a resei-x^e 
of strength stored within that is sufficient for their need. In 
the natural state under the hen the eggs do not hatch at the 
same time and then the chick must develop enough strength 
within itself to hurdle from the nest and follow the hen several 
feet before the first bright crystal of sand or seed is found. 
The hen generally takes the new brood off the nest the first 
thing in the morning, too, so that it is not necessary to go 
very far before some bright dew drops on blades of grass at- 
tract the chick's attention and in this way it obtains its first 
drink of water. The incubator chick does not know what water 
is until it accidently falls into it or is taught by some one to 
dip its bill into the water. Therefore, it is well to dip each 
chick's bill into water on the morning they are placed in the 
brooder. Be sure, too, that each and every chick gets a drink. 

The brooder should be running a day or more before the 
chicks are placed in it, so that it may be thoroughly warmed. 
It will not hurt the chicks to get out into the cold air for a few 
moments after the first two days, so they may be earned in an 
ordinary basket from the incubator to the brooder with an 
old cloth thrown over them. The old hen which stole her nest 
and hatched a brood is never in haste to leave the nest with 
her chicks, so don't be in a hurry to remove the chicks fi-om the 
incubator. Have the floor under the hover covered with soiTi^e 
sand and chaff. The chicks should be compelled to remain 
in the hover compartment the first day. A small tray of water 
placed in a light place and some fine grit and small seeds 
scattered about on the floor. Millet seed will do but the pre- 
pared chick feed is better. Some have poor luck with millet. 
Wet or moist mashes or feeds are considered by some to be not 
nearly so good as seeds but the little chick's system should not 
be overloaded with dry seeds. 

The scratching apartment or sun parlor of the broodei- 
should also be covered with a libei-al supply of chaff from the 
haymow. After the first day in the brooder the chicks should 
always be fed in this part. Beef scraps and small tender blades 
of grass chopped fine should be fed at the end of the first week 
and also be in their diet after that time. 

The best location for the brooder is on a plot of short 
grass near some fresh spaded earth where the chicks can 
scratch and find the minute forms of animal life which they 



78 BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



relish so much. The earth should be freshened up every day 
by raking or spading it. This is why the edge of a corn patch 
or garden is such a fine place for chicks. Remember the chicks 
do not do as well on the fresh, bare earth alone, or on the sod 
alone. The combination is the thing. 

After the first week the temperature in the brooder may be 
lowered to 85 degrees. On warm days the lamp may be turned 
out several hours during the middle of the day. The hover 
should always be warm at evening though, until the chicks 
feather out. The mistake is made too often in having a cold 
brooder. Take example from the old hen and you will notice 
she never changes her temperature much and the chicks lun to 
her many times during the nicest days, while yet young, to get 
warmed up and these I'epeated warmings is what makes them 
grow fast and be able to wai'd off diseases that brooder chicks 
often fall prey to. 



Advantages of Marking Chicks. 

Those who have been reai'ing high class fowls any length 
of time have already learned how to mark their chicks so as to 
identify them when gi-own, but there are many, perhaps, who 
are hatching thoroughbreds from different pens foi- the first 
time and contemplate line bi-eeding. Marking has a number of 

advantages. No mat- 
ter if the neighbor has 
the same variety of 
fowls, when the web in 
the little chick's feet 
is punched with a small 
poultry punch made 
especially for the pur- 
pose, the birds can be 
identified by the mark 
and the combination 

XK\^\\nc.v\ o\W\v.Nv\w« CW\s^^v\ Y""^'^- Moreover, to 

' breed intelligently it is 

absolutely necessary that the chicks be marked, the progeny 
of each mating receiving a destinctive marking. In mating 
up the pen another season this will be a safeguard against in- 
breeding as it is possible by this method to know what re- 
lation, if any. the fowls bear to one another. Again, by mark- 
ing the chicks fiom the different matings, we can know which 
mating produced the best chicks and can mate accordingly 
next season. In buying eggs fi-om another breeder, also, it is 
always desirable to know what kind of mature fowls the eggs 



1 


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3 


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7 


A> 4> 







n 


1 X 


4\ yp 

/3 




^/•h 

/.** 





BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 79 



produce, and it is impossible to know this unless the chicks are 
marked. The marks serve also to establish the age of the 
fowls from year to year. 

The accompanying illustration shows how the chicks may 
be marked in sixteen different ways — the liirdt of the com- 
binations because there are only four webs in the two feet and 
four squared is sixteen. Each pair of feet is numbered. The 
holes are punched in the small web between the toes of the 
chick. It is practically a painless operation, and the chicks 
seem scarcely to notice it if punched the first few hours after 
hatching. The fowls, as a rule, carry the mark as long as 
they live. Care should be taken not to place the hole too 
near the outer edge of the web, or it will tear out. As each 
brood is hatched, carefully mark each chick, using a different 
arrangement for each pen of eggi^ represented, changing the 
arrangement in a manner similar to that indicated by the dots 
in the illustration. 

Have a blank book in which to record the marks and, as 
the chicks are marked, record them by marking a diagram of 
the dots as they appear in the web of the feet. Opposite the 
diagram record the pen oi- breeding from which the eggs were 
obtained, the date of the hatch and any other information that 
may be of use in the future. 



A Fireless Brooder. 

Only during the late spring and summer it is ad\nsable to 
attempt to brood chicks artificially without heat. Some forty 
years ago the theory was first advanced that chicks could be 
brooded artifically by confining the heat made by the little 
chicks' bodies, but not until quite recently has this theory re- 
ceived general attention. The assertion has been made that 
chicks could be brooded by this method out of doors during the 
most severe winter weather, and some who have ti-ied it have 
been successful. The process has hardly left the experimental 
stage far enough, however, and the attempt to use it on a laige 
scale should not be made until it has been tried on a small 
scale first. 

But the fireless brooder may be employed for secondary 
use for brooding in warm weather or in heated houses. It may 
be also used in emergency cases where the hen leaves the brood 
a little too soon, when the brooder becomes overcrowded, or 
when the brooder is wanted for anothei- and younger flock, but 
where it is hardly time for the brood to take to the colony 
houses. 

The principal object sought in building one of these 
brooders is to make all parts easily accessible for cleaning and 



80 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



for caring for the chicks, to confine the heat as much as possible 
and yet have a good supply of pure air, to have the hover ad- 
justable and padded with plenty of heatholding cloth, so the 
chicks may have something to press their backs up against as 
they do when brooded by the hen. 

" The brooder shown in the illustration is made in four 
different parts, each of which may be easily and quickly 

cleaned. The outside 
measui'cment of the box 
is 2x2^2 feet and the 
height is eight inches. 
The floor is made to 
fit up in the box so 
that the four walls fit 
tightly on the floor of 
the brooder house. 
Where the walls of the 
box sit on the floor of 
the brooder it is too 
easily displaced and 
does not fit tight 
enough. Four holes are 
made in the corners of 
the box an inch apart 
and the top hole an 
inch from the top ledge 
of the wall. A peg fit- 
ted into one of the 
holes in each comer 
holds the hover at any 
height suited to the age 
of the chicks. There 
are also four large 
holes in the walls of the 
box, one on each cor- 
ner an inch or an inch and a half in diameter for ventilation. 
These ventilators are made big enough so that the air must 
pass through the cloth of the hover before it can reach the 
chicks. In this way thei-o is a continuous inflow of pure air 
without a draft. Tin slides may be made to fit over the 
ventilators so the supply of air may be regulated during ex- 
ceedingly cold nights. 

The hover shows two folds of cloth diopped down, but 
another fold or two may be added with good results. The cloth 
is dropped, too, in folds Vvithout being cut into long strips as 
is the usual case and this makes the retention of heat much 
easier. Woolen flannel is the best material to use. An old 
blanket is generally available. The top is made to fit down 
tightly on the box and may be roofed with tarred paper or tin 




rioo r 

Dr;i\vin:-cs of the i)aits for the fireless 
bioodiT. 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



81 



if it is to be used outside during the summer. The brooder 
should not be used, though, out in the open, but a good smooth 
roof is provided more as a roosting board than anything else as 
the chicks soon take to it after they feather out well. 




Home made feed trough that does not waste 
the food. 



Feeding for Quick Growth. 

Those who wish to use a modified system of the hopper 
feeding plan may use troughs like the illustration for this 
purpose. The feed for the fowls for the day is placed in a 
divided trough, mash in one end and mixed grain or cracked 
corn in the other. The daily allowance of the food so fed varies 

a little according to the 
season and the appe- 
tites of the birds. 

The daily allowance 
for twenty-five fowls 
supplied in this trough 
should be a little less 
than three pints of 
moist mash and about 
21 quarts of dry grain mixture. The birds should be fed rather 
liberally, as there is no profit made with fowls fed on a scant 
ration. Just enough should be fed tho so that there is rarely 
any feed left in the trough at night. 

This method of feeding is especially well adapted to the 
needs of the large poultry farmers where the main object is to 
make the youngsters grow to a marketable age as quickly as 
possible and with the least attention. Then where egg farming 
is carried on and the hens are kept out over the fields and 
grouped in colonies of 35 to 50 this is an ideal way, supplying 
them with plenty of food without making the feeding place a 
drawing card for rats during the night, as the fowls clean 
the feed up before night. When the trip is made around the 
farm with a one-horse wagon in the morning to feed and water, 
the attendant can keep in touch with the entrie flock, as they 
will not go out to range until they have been fed. 

In the Little Compton district in southeastern Rhode Island 
where the Rhode Island Red was oi'iginated and made famous 
for this reason, the poultry farms generally use the trough 
system. This section of Knode Island is noted for the great 
numbers of chickens raised and the practical poultrymen. Here 
men make the rearing of poultry a life study and make it a 
specialty just as sheep and cattle raising is made a specialty in 
many sections. The "one-man plants," as they are called, 
clear from $1,000 to $1,500 per year on their forty and fifty 



82 BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



acre farms by egg farming and bi-oiler raising. The product 
of these farms is shipped to Boston, Providence and New York 
principally. The Rhode Island Red fowl was originated by these 
farmers by a process of selecting the fowls each year which 
were best suited to their practical needs as egg layers and 
market fowls as well. This accounts for the widespread pop- 
ularity of the Reds. 

The daily mash fed on these plants varies some according 
to the season but generally consists of about half and half 
bran and chop feed (cracked corn and oats ground together) 
cooked until the corn is thoroughly done and then about ten or 
twelve per cent beef scrap added before feeding. During the 
winter cut steamed clover i.s mixed with the mash in about equal 
quantities. 

The mixed grain is usually a mixture of cracked corn, 
whole corn, wheat and oats, the mixture being about 50 per cent 
corn in the summer season and a considerably large percentage 
during the winter season. After the chicks are old enough to eat 
mash they are fed the same feed as the adult stock as much 
time is saved which it would otherwise take in preparing addi- 
tional food. Fish waste is fed quite extensively on these poul- 
try farms in the spring to supplement the high priced beef 
scraps. Fresh fish waste can generally be obtained for twen- 
ty-live cents a barrel. The fish waste is well cooked before it 
it is fed and care taken not to feed too much to the laying stock 
as the fish taints the eggs. It is fed in abundance to the grow- 
ing stock tho. 

When one man cares for from 2,000 to 4,000 fowls each day 
the farm must necessarily be laid off to the best possible ad- 
vantage that all the fields may be easily and quickly reached 
and the feeding done with expedience. All feeding and water 
appliances must be simple, easily used and cleaned. 

The feeding troughs vary in size, but on an average are 
three and a half feet long by fourteen inches wide. Four up- 
right posts on one-inch square stuff twelve inches long form the 
corner and legs. The bottom of the trough is made of a smooth 
board notched at the corners to receive the posts which serve as 
a frame as well as legs. The bottom board is nailed to the posts 
about four inches from the lower ends. On each side is nailed 
a piece three inches wide by three and a half feet long, giving a 
depth of about two inches to the trough. On each end is nailed 
a piece of board six inches high and fourteen inches wide which 
serves to form the end of the trough and support the removable 
top board. The top board or cover is of heavy inch stuff ten 
inches long, so that it will form a movable cover that is not eas- 
ily shaken or jarred out of position. The whole makes a prac- 
tical feeding device which keeps the food clean and prevents 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



waste. There is little more than a three-inch clear open space 
for the feeding fowls between the top of the sides of the 
trough and the cover or lid. 



Missouri Colony Brooder House. 

By T. S. TOWNSLEY 
Stove brooders afford the easiest and cheapest method 
of brooding large flocks of chicks. Farm poultry keepers who 
appreciate efficient equipment are rapidly discarding all other 
brooding methods in favor of the colony .^toves. With the coal 
or oil heated colony hovers from three hundred to five hundred 
chicks can be handled in one flock mth no more labor than is 
required with a few dozen chicks brooded with hens or in lamp 
heated biooders. The chick mortality is remarkably low on 
farms using colony stoves and little difficulty is experienced 
in raising early-hatched 
chicks. The fuel cost for 
brooders is low, and the 
stoves are durable. 

Brooder stoves are used 
in all kinds of buildings, 
but best results are secur- 
ed with a specially de- 
signed colony house. The 
brooder house should be 
ward, dry, well lighted 
and ventilated, and be 
iarge enough to fui'nish 
room for exercise. It 
should also be movable so 
that the chicks may have 
fresh groudn for their 
range. 

The Missouri colony 
brooder house is designed 
to meet at least expense 
all the requirements of a 
farm brooder house. This 
house is built eight feet 
wide and ten feet long, 
with a gable roof. The 
gable roof construction 
has several advantages 
over other types. It re- 
quires less lumber, is 
more substantial, easier 

to move, and affords bet- Cross Section. 









— 


<5i 


Ti^^ 




1 




1 






• — ^■*' y 






, 


-.; 


■ M ! f 1 




84 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 




L 



R^ 



ter interior arrange- 
ment than other 
houses. 
... Building Details. 

Walls — The walls 
are of car siding, nail- 
ed up and down. This 
forms a tight wall and 
eliminates the use of 
studding except at the 
corners. Flooi-ing may 
be used for walls in- 
stead of car siding. 
These t o n g u c-a n d- 
groove materials make 
a tighter wall than 
other foi-ms of siding 
and are no more ex- 
pensive. 

Floor — li a movable 
house a board floor is 
the only practical type. 
This floor should con- '""'Kl •'^>"Li 

sist of a single layer of carefully laid matched flooring. A 
double flooris a needless expense. 

Roof — A shingle i-oof makes less weight on the building 
than most other types, and is less likely to be damaged in 
moving the house. 

Foundation — A block under each corner of the house pio- 
yides a satisfactory foundation. When the house is to be moved 
it can be set on a pair of skids. 

Ventilation — Ventilation is secured through two openings in 
the south end of the house. These may be covered with muslin 
in stoimy weather. Additional ventilation may be secured in 
warm weather by opening the windows. 

Light — Four small windows supply light for this house. 
Two of these are placed in the south front and one; in the east 
and one in the west sides. This arrangement insures good light 
in all parts of the house. 

Cost of House. 

The material in this house at current prices in Columbia 
will cost about ;>.")(). The co.-t of labor in building it should 
not cxci-ed $10. In many sections of the state these figures 
can be considerably reduced. 

The cost of a house of this type is not prohibitive for poul- 
try keepers when the many uses which can be made of it are 
considered. After the brooding season is past the house 
makes ideal summer quarteivs for giowing pullets. During the 
fall and winter months it will comfortably house twenty to 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 85 

twenty-five laying hens, or it will make a convenient house for 
storing feed. Before brooding time in the spring it can be 
used as a house for the breeding flock. The fact that it is 
easily moved adds very greatly to its usefulness. 




'<*». 



;5ill— Four pieces, 2x6 — 8; 32 board feet. 

Sills— Two pieces 2x6—10; 20 board feet. 

Rafters — Eight pieces 2x4 — 5; 27 board feet. 

Plates — Two pieces 2x4 — 10; 13 board feet. 

Studs — Four pieces 2x4 — 5; 13 board feet. 

Door Posts — Two pieces 4x2 — 6; 8 boai'd feet. 

Nailer — Rear Wall — One piece 2x4—8; 5 board feet. 

Short Pieces — Front — Five pieces 2x4 — 2%; 9 board feet. 

Sheeting — Eighteen pieces 1x4 — 11; 66 board feet. 

Finishing — Cornice — Four pieces 1x4 — 5; 7 board feet. 

Finishing — Corner Strips — Foui' pieces 1x4 — 5; 7 board feet. 

Finishing — Short Pieces — Four pieces 1x2 — 2h; 2 board 
feet. 

Window Sills — Four pieces 1x2 — 2y2; 3 board feet. 

Finishing — Door — Two pieces 1x2 — SVe; 2 board feet. 

Door Sill — One piece 1x3 — 5%; 1 board foot. 

Flooring — Thirty-two pieces 1x4 — 10; 107 board feet. 

Siding — 1x4, 225 board feet. 

Total Lumber — 547 board feet. 

— Shingles One and one-quarter thousand. 

Windows — Four six-light, 8x10 sash. 

Wire Netting — For windows and open front, 15 linear feet 
of 2-foot wire. 

Muslin — For open front, 1 yard. 

Hinges for Door — One light pair and one heavy pair. 

Hasp for Door — One 6-inch hasp. 



86 BUILDING PLANS FOK TOULTRYMEN 



Hatching Chicks and Their Color. 

Because you have paid a good price for a setting of eggs 
from some breeder is no reason why you should apply the egg 
standard to the eggs you received and write saucy letters to 
the breeder because the eggs were not of the same shade or color. 
If he had known this was what you wanted he would have picked 
out the eggs at the corner grocery. Varieties laying tinted or 
brown eggs may lay many different shades of eggs. Some Avhite 
efrg varieties often have an occasional bii'd laying a tinted egg. 
Stiange to say, these tinted eggs in the white varieties though 
if they hatch pullets, the pullets do seldom lay tinted eggs. 
They occasionally crop out when there is no occasion for it. 

Therefore do not judge the chicks by the eggs. I once saw 
a setting of eggs from one of the most prominent breeders in 
the east which c st the buyer more than $1 each and among 
them was a very ill shaped egg. The egg hatched tho and this 
very chick turned out to be the very best in the whole lot. 

The point I am making is that it only takes one egg to 
hatch the coveted lirst prize winner and it is all a matter of 
chance what color or shaped egg this chick will be hatched from. 
Leading bi'eeders therelore do not like to take chances in eating 
a slightly ill shaped egg for they may be eating the golden egg. 

Others get disappointed when after paying a fancy price 
for a setting of eggs to find that they get only a half dozen or 
say two or three chicks from the whole lot. Then they com- 
mence to figure that the chick or two cost them $5 or -$10 or 
$15 each, as the case may be. But do not complain if you got 
one chick as far as blaming the breeder is concerned. Take 
pains and raise the one chicK. It may be worin a whole liock. 
Nearly every breeder has a fertility guarantee and when eggs 
do not prove fertile take advantage of the guarantee. Many 
breeders also guarantee a certain number to hatch or replace at 
half price or some such arrangement. Therefore, if at first 
you do not succeed, try, try again. Do not grow- suspicious of 
the breeder until you have given him a fair chance to live up 
to his guarantee. 

Then again many keep their hopes and expectations at a 
high pitch until the eggs really hatch and then let them fall to 
earth because the chicks do not happen to be a certain shade 
or color. Remember again that is is just as hard to judge the 
mature fowl by the chicks, as it is to judge it by the egg. 

All black fowls may be said to be black but all chicks 
hatched from eggs from black fowls are not black nor are they 
alike. The same may be said of the white fowls. Not only does 
the variety have a great deal to do with the color of the chick 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 87 



when hatched but different strains of the same variety often 
show a difference so pronounced that the experienced eye can 
note the difference. 

Dispell then your fear for the next few weeks and withhold 
your judgment, if you have a bunch of chicks on hand from 
eggs you purchased. Because they do not look like the chicks 
from your own fowls of the same variety is no sign they will 
not turn out even better than your own stock] 

Most people are sufficiently informed about chicks to know 
that Barred Rock chicks are not hatched with bars and yet I 
have knowTi customers to call the breeder all kinds of names, 
intimating that he was crooked, because the chicks did not hatch 
with bars. This spring I heard of a case where a party paid $5 
for a setting of eggs and then after he received them refused to 
set them and wired to the breeder at his expense asking for a 
return of his money because the eggs did not suit him in shape. 
When the breeder wired back the charges were reversed on him 
costing him 91 cents more and yet the buyer refused to set 
the eggs. 

These ai'e cases where "ignorance is bliss and to be wise is 
folly" is certainly not tine. 

The parti-colored or black red varieties, Brown Leghorns 
and Cornish chicks are very beautiful when hatched. There is 
a band or stripe of brown from the head to the tail and with 
lighter and narrower stripes on either side on the back. Over 
the rest of the body they are light brown or fawn. Brown 
Leghorns which are double mated can usually be told at hatching 
in that the light or female line chicks are very much lighter 
than the dark or exhibition male chicks. The male line are 
often so dark that the stripes blend on the back. 

A black chick should not be hatched entirely black, if it is 
to be a green metallic black when grown. Some white shows 
good breeding. White about the head and breast in black chicks 
are the most satisfactory markings. 

White fowls with yellow shanks should produce various 
degrees of creaminess or faint lemon yellow. A blue grey tinge 
to the fluff in white chicks will produce a white quilled chick in- 
variably. But if a white chick from a white-plumaged and 
legged fowl has bluish shanks that thing, never clears. In fact, 
blue shanks on chicks, no matter what variety of yellow or white 
legged fowls, never clear. 

The chicks from buff fowls come either with a yellow or 
buff cast, and have reddish-yellow legs, which gradually turn to 
white. The red is the blood showing thru the skin while after 
the scales on the leg form they do not permit the red blood 
to show thru. 

Red varieties are very near like the buff, but they generally 
have sho\\'n more white and have a patch of browTi on the back. 

Black chicks always grow some white feathers in flights of 



BUILDING PLANS FOR TOULTRYMEN 



wings. Parti-colored varieties often do. This should not alarm 
you in the least. Parti-colored varieties should not necessarily 
grow white feathers at first, but it all depends upon the strain 
and care of the chicks. Chicks hatched in incubators and raised 
in brooders generally grow white feathers at first and time and 
again. I have seen chicks hatched from the same eggs and at 
the same time under h tis and cared for in the natural way 
never develop the white in wings. Then again chicks confined 
while growing will often develop white no matter how they are 
fed or cared fo)". 

The white chick developing and getting a black feather or 
two here and there will quite likely be your whitest adult so do 
not berate the breeder for selling you mongrel eggs. 

Again chicks are often condemned because the legs are not 
yellow and should bo so. Do not get excited. The chicks that 
have yellow legs at hatching time will fade while the chicks with 
darker legs, but with good yellow under foot, will produce the 
best yellow shanks. 

To gain an advantage in mating up your pens for better re- 
sults watch your chicks develop very carefully and you will 
soon find certain marks are marks of quality, while others are 
sure signs of being a cuil. PLxperienced breeders can commence 
culling just as soon as the chicks are old enough for friers, but 
the beginner should not take this risk until he is thoroly familiar 
with the life history of the chicks of his A'ariety else he may 
chop the head off his best bird unknowingly. 



The Half- Way Coop. 

After the hen has left her brood it is alwaj's a vexing 
question to know what to do with the youngsters. The coop 
that held them, and the hen beside, very comfortable a few 
weeks ago, is now much too ;=mall. The chicks are too small 
yet to attempt to teach them to take to the poultry house with 
the older fowls, and if the attempt were made the adult fowls 

would make life un- 
bearable for them. The 
desire to go on the 
perch should be culti- 
vated as soon, though, 
as the desire is shown. 
A large dry goods box 
roofed, as illustrated, 
makes an ideal half- 
way coop. The slats 
are placed close enough 
together so that the 
older fowl s cannot 
bother the youngsters 
as they go to roost. The 




The dry goods box coop suitable for the prow- 
inj: chicks. 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 89 



small coop that they have been reared in thus far should be 
removed and this coop placed in its place. No matter how 
hard the stonn, the rain cannot beat in with the wide ex- 
tension roof, and yet the fowls are made accustomed to an open 
front house and plenty of pure fresh air. Take care that the 
young half grown fowls do not crowd together in a corner at 
night. This instinct is still in them to huddle up to some- 
thing, although they really do not need the heat. If many are 
together in a flock they will crowd together very close and 
sweat. Along in the morning as it gets cooler they cool off 
too lapidly and fowls with a cold and roup is the result. It 
is far better to have them take to the roost, as they are sure 
not to crowd there. A one by three- or four-inch board laid 
flat makes an ideal roost for youngsters and will not produce 
crooked breast bones. 



The Sun and Rain Shed. 

Because of sudden showers, many little chicks become dren- 
ched and drowned during the early spring and summer because 
they could not get to a place of shelter soon enough or because 
they ran to the w)-ong coop in their excitement and the strange 
old hen kept them out until it was too late. Often the door to 
the coop blows shut or the opening is not lai-ge enough for 
ail the little fellows to get in at once. For this reason there 
should always be pro- 
vided handy an open 
place where the hen 
and chicks can get un- 
der easily in case of a 
sudden shower. A shod 
roof protection rrnay be 
easily made out of a 
few old boards like the 

illustration, and it will A p.^ctical, easib made sun shade and lain 
, , shed. 

come m handy many 

times during the summer and save much worrying and annoy- 
ance about whether the chicks are all in out of the rain, when 
you happen to be away from home when the sudden shower 
comes up. You can make this frame most any size, according to 
your needs, but the more commodious the better. When several 
hundred chicks are raised several should be provided a conven- 
ient places and where the chicks range most. The stakes to 
which they are attached should be driven well into the ground 
and the shelter securely nailed to it so there is no danger of 
the wind collapsing it and killing the chicks. 

It will be surprising to you to note how the fowls enjoy 




90 



BUILDINC, PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



the shade under tlic platform. Make the shelter quite near 
the ground and just so the fowls can barely stand undei- it, 
in preference to any other shade, during the very hot portion 
of the day. Burlap curtains hung from the sides make it more 
inviting and cooler. 



An Ideal Colony House for Chicks. 

To raise chicks in largo numbers and yet have them strong 
and vigorous the colony house is almost indispensable. The 
largest and most successful poultry farms in the United States 
almost to a unit use the colony house in some form or other. 
The chicks can be housed in large brooders when young with 
good success, but when they are old enough to run about much 







9&'-3i^0^i^Bt^M^'^^' 



Colony ho>ise dcsciibed in accompanying article. 

they must have the advantage of more range than is afforded 
around a large brooder house where there are hundreds of other 
chicks the same size and age after the same bug and worm. 
Raising chicks to maturity in large flocks is like raising chil- 
dren in the heart of a large city. There is too much jostling 
about and too much excitement and too many after the same 
mouthful of food. Chicks must be raised like nature would 
have them, to be robust, strong and vigorous. Nature did not 
intend that two broods of chicks be cared for together, let alone 
several incubators full. Fifty little chicks are enough to have 
in one bunch after they get old enough to scramble about much. 
The illustration of the colony house shown here is the one 



BUILING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 91 



that has been found most successful on the Fishel White Rock 
Farm. A batch of young chicks is placed in the house, which is 
provided with a brooder stove or hover attachment. The upper 
trap window is left closed during cold weather and the lamp 
under the hovers keeps the house amply warm. No matter 
how stormy or blustery the weather may be, the little fellows 
have plenty of dry floor space covered with chaff in which to 
exercise. Just the moment the sun comes out the two low win- 
dows in front give them the full benefit of it just whei^e it is 
needed — on the floor in front. 

The colony houses are generally kept up pretty close about 
the other buildings while the chicks are young, but just as 
soon as the clover fields commence to green out and fairly good 
weather is assured, they are moved out a little distance. As 
they grow older the houses are moved farther and farther until 
all the clover fields on the farm are occupied. The houses are 
moved as far apart as possible and rarely are they closer than 
three hundred feet in the row, and the rows are much fai'ther 
apart. The houses are placed in rows and closer one way 
than another, so the attendant and wagon with water may reach 
them with as little driving over the field as possible. 

After the chicks are weaned from the hover, roosts are put 
in the places provided for them, and the chicks take to them 
like old hens. Altho the chicks from the different houses wander 
together during the day they are never bunched together, and 
the fowls belonging to each house always gather about their 
own coop when feeding time comes. The houses are cleaned 
each morning with as much regularity as feeding is done. The 
roosts are painted with lice killer two or three times a week and 
thus lice and mites never get a start, and it is hardly ever neces- 
sary to pick up an individual bird and administer louse killer. 
Birds grown thus, as nature would have them, gi'ow like weeds 
and they are a pleasure and delight to care for and attend to. 
Money in poultry! Of course there is when cared for like this. 

The houses, as a rule, are about six by eight feet and six 
feet high in front and four or five in the rear. They are 
built on good stout skids so they may be dragged about over 
the place at will. A single good horse can handle them. 



Planning the Spring Work — What to Do and When 

to Do It. 

After the severe weather during the greater part of Febru- 
ary, when many of our hens refused to lay, in spite of coaxing, 
we find it an' easy matter to obtain eggs in March, which 
usually brings us comparatively mild weather. Unless you 
spend a great deal of time ^^ith the fowls you can hardly realize 



92 BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



to what a great extent the tender blades of growing grass and 
minute forms of animal life enter into the hen's diet at this 
time of the year. This is really the secret of the increase in 
egg production — a fact readily proved when a few days of cold 
weather checks growth again. Of course we must be' prepared 
for this, and supply the food the fowl can not obtain under 
such conditions. Even at this time possibly some are finding it 
difficult to get eggs in any great number, but it is because the 
fowls are confined in small, bare runs and improperly cared 
for. 

It is interesting to note how we unconsciously catch the 
spirit of spring and before we are aware of the fact have our 
plans laid out to set so many hens during the next few days, 
or to start the incubator. But we must not forget that to have 
too may March chicks would cause more expense to raise them 
than later and necessitates much more care and fondling. This 
is not true of the poultry man who makes the raising of broil- 
ers and early fries a business, and is prepared for the early bus- 
iness, and is prepared for the early chick, but, to the average 
person who I'aises poultry only as a side line on a few feet of 
yard on the back lot, it is hardly expedient to set hens before 
the first of April. The earth then will have had time to warm a 
little before the chicks arc hatched, and they will mature so 
much easier and faster under the later favorable conditions. 

It is well, though, to plan ahead and decide how many 
young chicks we intend to raise and to bo thoroughly prepared. 
To have fertile, strong eggs we must have vigorous parent stock 
and to have chicks full of vitality we must have strong, fertile 
eggs. Much depends, too, on the care of the egg after it is 
laid and before it is placed under the hen. 

Eggs for hatching can not be removed from the nest too 
carefully. They should not be placed in a large basket A\ith 
many other eggs. This often causes a very small crack so 
minute that it can hardly be seen until the eggs have been 
under the hen several days and become a little soiled. The 
hands that gather the eggs should be clean and especially fi-ee 
from oily or greasy substances of any kind as the oil will 
surely enter the pores of the egg shell and seal them up so 
the chick will be deprived of air and die in the early stages of 
its development. In going about from one nest to another and 
opening and closing doors we are most likely to jar the basket 
or bucket in v.-hich we are carrying the eggs more than Ave 
realize, and enough to jar several germs fiom the web-like 
mooring between the yolk and white of the egg. During the 
severe cold weather the egg should not remain in the nest until 
it becomes chilled or be removed from a warm nest out into an 
open basket and carried about in the cold breezes of the evening 
for half an hour or more while gathering eggs. It is more 
advisable to gather the eggs three or four times a day during 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 93 



cold weather if they are to be used for incubation. If two oi 
miore pens are mated and if it is from these that you intend to 
save eggs for hatching, a lead pencil should be carried along 
while gathering eggs and the egg marked with the date and the 
pen number as it is removed from the nest. Experts find this 
the only safe way to mark eggs, as many eggs are handled day 
after day and a mistake is sure to be made some time during 
the breeding season in marking if we wait until we arrive at 
the house. The shell of the egg should be observed from time 
to time and care taken that the fowls are supplied ^\'ith oyster 
shell at all times if the egg shells are inclined in the least 
to be thin and fragile. Eggs not well proportioned or with a 
rough surface should not be saved and you should note whether 
your exceptionally good hen is laying nice smooth eggs. 

Low, flat wooden trays or boxes make ideal receptacles in 
which to keep the eggs before setting them. The box should be 
lined with three or four thicknesses of newspaper, as paper is 
a nonconductor of heat and the eggs will not be affected by 
rapid changes in the temperature so readily. It is much better 
to place only one layer of egg^ over the bottom of the tray, as 
they have to be turned each day. To turn the eggs, lay a row 
of them to one side and gently roll the rest over in their places 
and in this way the eggs \\ill have been turned just half over, 
so that the part that was at the bottom the day before is now at 
the top. Paper makes a very good covering for the eggs, too. 
If they are left in the open air for ten days in a dwelling they 
will dry out more than they would were they left in the nest 
built upon the moist earth. The temperature at which they are 
kept should be near 60 degrees Fahrenheit. Eggs of ordmary 
fertility may be kept two weeks safely. 



How to Fight Lice, Mites, Etc. 

You will And that the poultryman who has much diflfi- 
culty in raising his flock of young birds is generally so con- 
ceited about his own ability as a poultryman and his ability to 
analyze the causes of his trouble. No doubt this first state- 
ment is pretty harsh and will evoke criticism, but I mean just 
what I say, and the only qualification I wish to put on it is where 
a new beginner has let his enthusiasm lead him to undertake too 
much before he is thoroly familiar with the poultry business, and 
I am sure after you think back for several years of the failures 
and troubles among poultry raisers you will agree with me. 

I am almost tempted to say that 90 per cent of the poultry- 
men would not know a head louse if they should see it. Again, 
25 per cent do not know where to find the little red mites which 
make such ravages upon the fowls each year. I should say the 



94 BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



same thing about the ordinary body louse, the least harmful, 
altho the largest of all. Time and again I have been astonished 
upon visiting breeders of thorobrcd poultry — the fellows who 
claim to know all the "ing" and "outs" and tricks of the trade 
and all about the business, to hear them try to argue with me, 
when investigating the probable cause of the little chicks' weak- 
ness, that "that isn't a head louse, those are feathers." And 
then to look among the chicks' feathers for the little red mites, 
when, as a matter of fact, they have to be millions strong be- 
fore they will be found during the day, and that is about the 
last place you will find them. Another fallacy is that the place 
to look for body lice is under the wing, when, again, as a matter 
of fact, the chick or adult fowl has to be literally alive with 
lice before you will find more than an occasional one under 
the wing. 

Aside from faulty brooding, the two pests of the young 
chicks are lice and white diarrhea, and neither need cause the 
poultryman any concern whatever if he will first learn the seat 
of the trouble and then use preventitive methods instead of com- 
bative remedies after his flock is well in the grasp of one of 
these pests. 

You might as well make up your mind that every species 
of louse and mite will appear some time or other during the 
season just as sure as you set a hen or operate an incuator, and 
don't be so conceited about your flock of thorobreds as to argue 
that as 1 hatch them in an incubator and raise them in a brooder 
away from all other poultry, therefore my chicks will not be 
infested with lice. Look out, you will be hit good and hard with 
ten thousand times ten thousand of those pesky mites before you 
know it. Like Topsy, they don't seem to have any starting 
point, but just grow. 

White diarrhea will probably appear some time during the 
season, altho not such a certain and known quantity as lice. 
There are enough preventitive remedies on the market that 
are thoroly reliable, that every person attempting to raise 
little chicks should purchase a bottle or package before the 
chicks hatch and administer it as directed as soon as the chicks 
hatch and regularly every week or two until the chicks are good, 
big fellows, well feathered out, and then about once a month. 
Last year one of the severest cases of white diarrhea I ever saw 
and the only one of the season developed in a fully-feathered, 
healthy young cockerel nine weeks old and had it not been that 
1 had a supply of the preventitive medicine on hand I would 
have certainly lost him before I could have ordered thru the mail 
and in turn received it. 

For several seasons several years ago, I, too, went under 
the delu.-;ion that my chicks were being raised under perfect 
conditions, perfect feed, etc., and thei-efore I need not worry 
about lice or anything else and need not take any precaution 



BUILDING PANS FOR POULTRYMEN 95 



about prevention, but experience is a good teacher and cures 
are hard to effect, so I retraced my steps, and I have been going 
on the assumption for several seasons now, like I did when I 
first commenced raising poultry that my chicks probably have 
few lice or white diarrhea, and I give them a dose "just to 
make sure, anjnvay," as my grandmother used to do to me when 
1 would come in with wet feet, which would mean a bad cold 
if not taken in time. 

Grease the little chicks' heads and throats with sweet oil 
when you take them olf the nest or out of the machine. It is 
is easier to do then and does not take half the time, and it will 
last them for a couple of weeks, at least. Then, even if there 
are not signs of head lice at the end of that time, take an eve- 
ning off and repeat the operation, and again in another two 
weeks. I found that a systematic treatment like this every two 
weeks is very much less nerve-racking than to worry for days 
after they commence to die, and fret and stew as to what to 
do, and whether you will ever raise one or not. 

Scald out the brooder or brood coop every week or ten days 
with the hot soap-water left from the washing, and it will be 
better to add some strong lye. Get this water in every crack 
and crevice, underneath the floor as well as the walls and lid, 
and your worries about mites will be short-lived indeed. Scald- 
ing water kills the nits or eggs of these mites better than any- 
thing else, aside from fire, that I have ever tried. There are 
many good liquid disinfectants and louse-killers that may be 
added to water that are very fine also. Coal oil poured around 
in the cracks is also good. Remember the mites stay in the 
coop and only come out at night and suck the blood from the 
fowls. You will find them away down deep in the cracks or 
under the floor or at the ends of the roosts. 

If a few body lice appear a little sweet oil under the vent 
of the little chicks, as well as about the throat and head, will 
soon put them out of commission. 

Head lice ai-e a species of tick. Body lice ai'e scavengers 
and live on the ofl"al of the skin. They cannot suck blood. The 
little red mites are mites, as the word implies, and live on the 
blood alone. 



Prepare Early For Green Food and Shade. 

During the early part of May plans should be made to pro- 
vide the poultry yards with liberal supplies of green food and 
plenty of shade for the coming summer. If quantities of fresh 
lawn clippings can be had during hot months it probably will not 
be necessary to plan much further for the green food, but poul- 
try enjoy so much to pick the greens fresh from the stem, and 
if only a small plot ten by ten feet can be fenced ofi" in which 



9G BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



to grow a little green food, it will serve to improve the general 
tone of the flock. It is the domestic fowl's habit to roam about 
in quest of food — not to tramp about on a bare plot of ground 
— during the whole season and, in keeping with nature's plans, 
the yard should be so arranged that half of it at least is under 
cultivation at one time growing a crop of some kind that 
fowls enjoy and into which they may be be released once a day 
at least for an hour or so. A plot of fresh earth under culti- 
vation to which the fowls have access is a remedy for most ills 
of the poultry yard. If the poultry yard can not conveniently be 
divided into two parts for each pen of fowls and the flock turned 
into one or the other at will, then a corner or one end of the 
yard may be fenced off and spaded up for cultivation. 

There are many different varieties of vegetation that poul- 
try enjoy as green food. Indeed, the fowls are not at all par- 
ticular, and, for this fact, it is all the easier for the poultry 
raiser to select some crop that is adapted to the location and soil 
as well as the season and length of time in which he has to 
grow it. Fovds are especially fond of short, tender blades of 
grass of almost any variety, of young oats and rye, of lettuce 
the many different kinds of clover, alfalfa, rape and even of 
young dandelion plants. 

A crop of oats is desirable in the early spring and sum- 
mer, when plenty of moisture is a certainty, but, when sown 
later in the summer, the crop is likely to be a failure unless 
it can be watered. Oats is the most satisfactory green food 
where the board inclosure, with wire netting top is used. Rye 
is sown only in the fall for early winter use. 

All the surplus lettuce from the family garden and kitchen 
should be fed to the fowls, and when the patch in the garden 
becomes too tough for family use it should be fed to the flock as 
quickly as possible before it goes to seed and becomes useless. 

Clover and alfalfa, like the grasses, require too long a time 
and too much work to be used by the small poultry raiser as an 
exclusive crop for the fowls, but where these succulent plants 
can be obtained and fed with little trouble they are most ex- 
cellent green food. 

Rape is one of the nutritious greens where moisture is a 
certainty, and it can be sown any time from April to August. It 
cannot be recommended too highly as green food, as it grows 
rapidly and will stand much more drought than anything else 
that can be planted. Rape is ready to use in three or four 
weeks, depending upon the time of year. The fowls may be al- 
lowed the run of the patch for a half hour or so every other 
day at first. After the growth is well established the time 
may be prolonged until the fowls can be kept in it all the time, 
and the other half of the yard spaded up and sown in the 
same manner. The winter or biennial varieties should be sown. 
The dwarf Essex or English is the most widely cultivated. 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 97 



A very good plan in sowing a plot for green food for poul- 
try is to mix several different kinds of seeds. In this way the 
fowls get what they crave most and the conditions under which 
they live are made much more natural. A mixture of oats, 
lettuce, millet and rape furnishes an excellent food and a quick 
growing crop. A few cowpea seeds may be added, as the 
fowls like the leaves from this plant. 

Feed a variety of foods, not because "Variety is the spice 
of life," but because the hens will then be sure to get some of 
the things they need. 

There is little excuse for the bare sun beaten poultry yard 
so often seen when natural shade can be so easily provided 
with a little forethought in the spring. The poultry yard can be 
made as attractive as the front lawn with a few landscape gar- 
dening rules applied. The soil about the yard is generally very 
rich and very little care need be given the shade producing 
plants protected from the fowls. Of course, the orchard is the 
ideal place for fowls, but, lacking this, shade from shrubs, 
small fruit trees, vines and different tall annual plants will 
serve. Quince and lilac bushes may be grown in the poultry 
yard if they are inclosed with a small fence the first two 
years. A row of blackberry and raspberry bushes may be 
planted along the south fence. Morning glory and wild cucum- 
ber vines will make profuse shade on the wire netting fence in 
a few weeks. The tall varieties of sunflowers hide unattractive 
places and the seed is the best poultry conditioner and fattener 
that can be had. When used in combination with vines, the 
sunflower makes a very pleasing background. 



Mineral Matter in the Food is Absolutely Necessary. 

When the breeding stock is deprived of the proper amount 
of mineral food the egg content will soon be imperfect and the 
supply diminish. As a result chicks die in the shell or the eggs 
produce weak chicks. There may be a good egg yield and still 
an imperfect egg content from lack of mineral matter other than 
lime. Lack of suitable mineral food may also be a factor in 
causing poor fertility or even sterility. 

Fowls will live and apparently thrive on soils where there 
is practically no natural grit, but under such conditions where 
grit is not supplied they will eat large quantities of the soft 
earth. Young stock raised on such soil may be coop fed or crate 
fed for from two to three weeks and keep in good condition with 
no grit or earth supplied and no other mineral food except that 
contained in the grain and green stuff fed. Continue the ex- 
periment one to three weeks longer, feedmg, as far as pos.sible, 
food containing little or no mineral food and the confmed birds 



98 BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



will get out of condition and die. A fowl positively deprived 
of all mineral food aWII usually die in from one month to six 
weeks. Mineral food supplied in fine powder form will permit 
continuing the experiment for an indefinite period, but hard, 
sharp grit has not been found necessary to life. 

Between 5 and 6 per cent of the fowl's body, including 
feathers, is mineral matter and should the carcass of a six- 
pound fowl be burned and all the ash saved it will weigh ap- 
proximately five to five and one-half ounces. 

Eggs contain between 11 and 12 per cent mineral matter. 
Of this amount about 11 per cent is the shell and about 1 per 
cent is contained in the egg contents and contains all the 
mineral elements needed to perfect a living, hatchable 
chick. The shell of the egg is mostly calcium carbonate (lime). 

The average shell will weigh about two ounces. A good 
six-pound hen ought to yield at least twelve dozen eggs in 
twelve months — eighteen pounds of egg in one year. The twelve 
dozen eggs would contain about two pounds of mineral matter. 

The more important minerals found in the fowl's body 
and in eggs are: Calcium, sodium, potassium, magnesium, phos- 
phorus, sulphur, silicon and iron. They are not found in a 
free state, but in chemical combinations as carbonates, phos- 
phates, suli)hatcs, chlorides, etc. Salt (sodium chloride) is an 
important consistent of the blood. Potassium chloride is found 
in the icd blood cells and in the mxiscles. Potasium phosphate 
in the brain and nerve tissue. Calcium, magnesium and silicon 
in cartilages, bones and feathei's; iion in the blood. 

]Mineral food not only supplies the fowl's body with mineral 
nourishment necessary to maintenance, I'epair and upbuilding 
of the various pai'ts, but it also assists very materially in the 
active process of nutrition by promoting cell metabolism — the 
actual act or process by which living cells take up and properly 
use food material brought to them and reject or throw off the 
waste material and is aided by the pi-esence of essential mineral 
foods. 

It is difficult to make an accurate estimate of the amount 
of mineral food needed daily by a normal fowl. Not less than 
two pounds is needed for eggs alone in a year. A large amount 
of that wJiich is eaten is not usable and must be passed out. 
The droppings of a healthy hen for a year will yield from eight 
to ten pounds of mineral matter. The fowl's digestive organs 
select what can be used and is requiretl and reject the balance. 

The avei'age minimum daily intake of mineral food for an 
adult fowl is about half an ounce, or in one yeai', approximately 
not less than eleven or twelve pounds. 

A failure to supply plenty of oyster shells and cracked 
bone to laying hens will result in soft shelled eggii and a ten- 
dency to vgg eating. When a fowl eagerly eats stones, glass 
and other gritty substances it is striving to satisfy a craving 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 99 



for some needed mineral food ^vith which it is not supplied. 
A very small amount of the hard grits is assimilated by the 
digestive organs of the fowl and serve for little purpose. The 
fowls should be supplied with plenty of cracked oyster shells, 
fine gravel or coarse sand, ground bone and mica crystal grit. 
Growing chicks need plenty of mineral food to supply the 
needs of their rapidly growing bodies. They particularly need 
shells and raw dry bone to supply material for bone making and 
other tissues. They need sand to supply silicon for the feathers. 
If the chick is deprived of these, weak legs, slow feathering, 
crooked breast bones and other deformities is the result. 



Cutting the Cost of Feed Stuffs. 

Few poultrymen keep an account of just how much their 
feed costs them in a year. Did you ever stop to get even a 
rough estimate of just what your feed bills will amount to in 
a year's time ? If you have not, it will pay you. It is hardly 
worth while for me to argue with you about the value of buy- 
ing feeds in large quantities but it may be worth wiiile to dwell 
upon the advisability of buying feeds at the proper time. , 

There is hardly a place in the United States where corn 
and wiieat are not practical feeds for fowis and w^hen I use the 
term practical I mean economical in the broadest sense. The 
American fanner feeds little else beside corn the greater part of 
the year and if he raises w'heat he may manage to save the 
screenings from the threshing for the fowls. This is not practi- 
cal because, altho corn, for example, is one of the best propor- 
tioned grains yet it is not well balanced enough to feed it and 
nothing else and expect profit from the investment. 

The poultryman on the other hand know's that it pays to 
feed a variety and as nearly a balanced ration as possible. Too 
many poultrymen, however, feed expensive feeds when it is not 
necessary. "It is not wiiat a man makes but what he saves" is 
a favorite axiom. So with good judgment used in the mere 
matter of feeding and buying feeds quite a saving can be made 
during the year. 

August is the great wheat threshing month. Threshing be- 
gins many places early in July but by August wheat is on the 
market. I do not know how many poultrymen watch the market 
page of the daily papers but it will pay you if you feed any con- 
siderable number of fowis. I have found it a pretty safe rule to 
follow to lay in a supply of wheat during August. Year in and 
year out you will find it about as cheap then as any time during 
the whole year. 

The poultryman should have large bins provided and keep 
an eye open for bargains in poultry wheat. You do not need 



100 BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



to buy fii'st class wheat but often can get bargains in wheat 
that may have wild onions in it or some other slight defect that 
makes it hard to dispose of. Wheat of this kind can generally 
be gotten at a very low figure, considering the real market 
price of first class wheat at the time, and if the poultryman is 
wise enough to have bin capacity he can cut a big hole in his 
feed bill of the year by buying a large quantity of such wheat. 

Sometimes it can be bought of the farmer and again a 
miller or grain dealer gets such a quantity of just such wheat 
on his hands that he is only too glad to make a price on it for 
([uick sale. Every poultryman knows how to make a good 
scratch grain and there is nothing better for the body of the 
scratch grain than wheat. Occasionally, those living in close 
proximity to extensive farming districts and who can get in 
touch with the farmers at threshing time can get large quan- 
tities of wheat screenings for almost nothing. 

Later in the fall a supply of whole corn can be laid in at 
a profit. Remember ground grains are liable to heat and espe- 
cially ground corn. But it is always safe to lay in a good supply 
of whole corn and nothing makes a better last feed of the day 
during the cold winter months than whole corn. Several bush- 
els can be fed this way and if the corn is bought right quite 
a saving can be made. 

It is hardly ever pi-ofitable or wise to buy oats in any 
quantity because it is not a very good feed by itself, altho there 
is no better growing feed than oats. The hull on the oats is 
the great drawback to more extensive feeding by poltrymen. 
Pin head or hulled oats make a splendid feed. 

Then again the wholesale grocer may have a bargain in 
scratch grains of some well known brand which he is closing out 
and has a few sacks left. Wholesale feed men in all the large 
cities send out prices of feed stuft's each month and it is well 
to have your name on their list. You will find many dollars can 
be saved, even with a flock of HO fowls during the year, if feeds 
are bought for cash at the right time in quantities. 



For Winter Results and Poultry Success. 

The problem of where to start to make a success of the 
poultry business is as much a question as the old one, "Which 
Was First, The Hen or The Egg." So in advising beginners or 
trying to help these with many years' experience out of dif- 
ficult problems always reverts into the advice so often quoted, 
"Get Good Strong Healthy Stock or Strong Genned Eggs Full 
of Vitality," yet this advice seems preplexing, for when are we 
sure we "have the stock described as filling the bill and if 
we have the stock tloscribed how are we sure they will lay the 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 101 



kind of coveted eggs desired ? Between the hen and the chick 
there is always plenty of room for failure and also between the 
chick and the adult there is plenty of room for failure or if 
not utter failure weakening the vitality. 

So, in attempting to give the reader an idea of the con- 
dition his young stock should be in to make a success of the 
winter work, I am compelled to go back to the parent stock of 
the chicks you aie working with and even back two or three 
generations and state that the chicks should be hatched from 
eggs laid by good healthy vigorous stock and the eggs from this 
flock should be picked and cared for with care and the chicks 
should never have a "set back" of a single day during their 
summer existence. What I mean by a "set back" is that they 
should not be annoyed a single day with lice, with the bacteria 
or white diarrhea. No matter if they only have a slight attack 
it will always weaken them to a certain extent, with confine- 
ment in small bare runs with no shade, with crowding, with a 
lack of proper brooding when young, and so on through the 
whole catagory of evils that are the hard luck agents of so 
many poultrmen. 

I may be a crank on the subject of raising chicks under 
ideal natural surroundings, but I have good reasons to believe 
and believe the experience of poultrjonen much older than I as 
well as science will bear me out in the statement that even 
keeping small chicks confined after sunup causing them to fret 
and worry will take several hours a day growth from them. 
The change in the quality of milk given by cows when annoyed 
or woi-ried is a fair example of what I am trying to impress 
upon the grower of young fowls. Therefore, it is my aim to 
so raise my fowls that they never give a cheep of the note of 
dissatisfaction, annoyance or unnatural hunger. With life sail- 
ing on for them under this even tenor from the day they are 
hatched until they are five months of age when most of the 
pullets are laying, I believe I am justified in claiming with due 
conversation that I have gained a month in size and 50 per cent 
or more in vigor and stamina over the chicks that have had a 
slight attack of white diarrhea, six to three dozen head lice for 
a week or two before the owner noticed them waning in spirits, 
two to three months' annoyance of mites at night and long con- 
finement in foul coops after sunup, as well as confinement in 
small bare runs during the day, no matter how well fed. These 
are the little things that go to make the winter's work suc- 
cessful and profitable or unsuccessful and unprofitable as the 
individual case may be. 

Many poultry men gage their success for the season by 
the number of chicks they had to die, but taking the sensible 
view of it when a chick is so sick it dies with a reasonable de- 
gree of surety should we not find several more in the samie 
flock that are so sick they have lost several week's growth. We 



102 BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



should, therefore, not watch out for the deaths in our flocks 
before we become alarmed, but rather live with them so that we 
will notice the change in their spirits when a chick suffers its 
first annoyance no matter from what source. 

With such a flock you can go into the winter with great 
assurance if the same care and attention to details is followed 
as in babyhood. The cockerels should have been removed at the 
first sign of annoyance. The pullets should never be frightened 
or chased any more than a modern dairyman would permit 
such a thing with his cows. Young fowls should be taught 
to follow like sheep with the use of a little grain and I find it 
much easier to take them where I want them by this method 
rather than bunching them up and frightening a week's growth 
out of them. For this loason I like to move the brood coops they 
are in gradually up to the winter house so that late in the fall 
or whenever, according to their age largely, I want to change 
them from their colony coop to the house for the winter they are 
so accustomed to roosting near the house that the first night 
I remove the colony coop away entirely they hardly know the 
change and go right in the house. The change has been so 
gradual that they never are annoyed and worried a single hour. 
These attentions to trifles and details might be called nonsense 
and theory by some, but by actual cxpeiience the more I live 
with fowls the more I find this attention to small details pays. 
It brings the pullets up to their very best and yet does not 
bring on c^f}; production too soon when they are far undeveloped 
nor does it pay less well with the cockerels whether for broilers 
or breeders. Kindness and attention to details with any kind of 
domestic fowls or animals will pay handsomely coupled with ex- 
perience. We cannot really he kind to our wards until we have 
experience and know how. The bee keeper even preaches kind- 
ness and attention to details and it is common knowledge that 
the bees disturbed and annoyed for a few minutes will lose the 
better part of a day's work. 

The pullets then, when in the laying house, should be taught 
to use the house as soon as cold weather begins. Do not 
wait until the ground is frozen before the house is gone over 
for the winter, and plenty of litter added to the house. To carry 
the pullets from the late fall into the winter, laying all the time, 
is a trick, so to speak, and the trick is none other than watch- 
ing carefully the wants of the young fowls and supplying every 
need as winter closes in about them. Early in the fall on cold 
mornings or rainy weather, accustom the pullets to use the 
litter by giving their scratch grain in it. The dry mash hoppers 
of course, are in the winter house and kept full of mash all the 
time. This makes the poultry house the most thriving place the 
young fowls can find and they will take to it like ducks to 
water. When real cold weather sets in the fowls hardly notice 
the doors are closed and they are confined all day. Thus, their 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 10? 



nervous sytsem does not have a single shock, they never fret 
and worry at being confined causing the egg yield to stop right 
at the time cold weather commences and eggs are high, but they 
go right on laying and will lay through the winter if the house 
is built substantially and well ventilated and lighted and the 
proper care and feed is given the young pullets. Compare this 
method with that in vogue with many where the young stock 
is all over the place roosting in the barn and on fences and 
shifting for themselves and left thus until the snow overtakes 
them and they have to be lifted from their roosts and taken to 
a laying house. Of course they will worry at being confined 
and it will take two months to get them accustomed and to lay- 
ing again right while eggs are highest. Do not understand me to 
be against fowls shifting for themselves as much as possible. 
This is all right, but at the same time while they are out lead- 
ing a natural life in the open I want to keep them so under 
my control and feed them so regularly at their proper place 
that I can handle them at any time and they will roost at night 
where I invite them. Sounds a little unreasonable, but it can be 
done and done easily by observing the fowl's instinct, following 
the laws of nature and attention to the little things that make 
life worth living, even for the lowly fowl. 

As a final warning, do not crowd the young fowls and 
when they want to roost give them a flat board to roost on. 



How to Get Plenty of Eggs in Winter. 

The natural time of the year for the hen to lay is in the 
spring and summer, but any variety or breed of fowls so popu- 
lar today can be made to produce eggs during the dead of win- 
ter with proper care and feeding. Certain natural desirable 
characteristics have been fostered and intensified tho by selec- 
tion and mating until there are now breeds that excel in some 
particulars over others. 

When the demand for eggs exceeds the supply the price 
of eggs advances as a natural consequence. The egg farmer 
has solved the problem and has made the getting of eggs a 
scientific certainty when the prices are high, much to his profit. 
The family keeping just a few hens may do the same thing and 
make the average egg yield per hen even greater, because fowls 
do better in smaller numbers and better attention can be af- 
forded the small flock. 

The egg farmer places his fowls under conditions as nearly 
like spring as possible with the exception of the temperature, as 
it has been found that hens do not require warm quarters. They 
thrive in dry, windproof quarters without drafts and with as 
much sunshine and fresh air as possible. He feeds them a well 



104 BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



balanced ration, which is as near like the hens would get were 
they roaming about over broad fields in the summer time. The 
bugs and worms the fowls get during the summer play quite 
an important part in influencing the egg yield. 

To take the place of the bugs and worms some form of 
meat must be fed. Some one of the by-products of beef is the 
cheapest and most satisfactory. In isolated country districts 
milk can be fed to advantage, but milk is almost as hard to 
obtain and as high priced as eggs for the average city or town 
dweller. The packing houses are near tho, and beef scraps or 
dried beef blood prepared especially for chickens can be obtained 
at any of the seed or feed stores at very reasonable rates when 
purchased in 100 pound bags and fed as easily as grain. 

Beef scraps are superior to dried blood. If of good quali- 
ty it will keep indefinitely if kept dry. Its appearance is hard- 
ly what the name might suggest, as the scraps after being 
cooked thoroly tender are ground into coarse bits so it can be 
fed in the mash. Mix the mash in the following proportions by 
emptying the meal on a clean floor or have the feed man do 
it before delivery and shoveling it about, dry, until thoroly 
mixed. Keep the feed in barrels away from rats and feed as 
needed by scalding a sufficient quantity for the flock. A good 
mixture is as follows: Chop feed, 40 lbs.; middlings, 22 lbs.; 
beef scraps. 15 lbs. 

Chop feed is composed of half and half oats and corn ground 
together. Middlings is a by-product of wheat flour— the heart 
or middle of the wheat and the richest part, but which modem 
milling methods has decreed shall not go into the flour, sacri- 
ficing nutritive properties for whiteness. Bran is the hull or 
outer covering of wheat. 

Chickens must have some kind of green food along with 
their grain during the winter if many eggs are expected. Beef 
scraps, green cut bone, blood meal or chopped raw beef will 
take the place of the bugs and worms they pick up during the 
summer, but something must also be provided to take the place 
of the tender blades of grass picked here and there. Grains 
are too concentrated in themselves to form the whole diet for 
fowls. With a crop filled with nothing but grains the starch 
in them becomes pasty and sticky after becoming moist and 
will not move along easily thru the fowl's peculiarly formed 
alimentary canal unless there is some bulky substance mixed 
with the food. In fact, it requires very much less food if bulky 
green foods of some kind are fed regularly, and, of course, they 
are much cheaper. 

At first thot it would seem almost impossible to have a 
supply of green food during the winter in our northern and 
central states without considerable cost. There are several dif- 
ferent ways of supplying this part of the ration, tho. Apple 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 105 



parings and cabbage leaves which would otherwise be M-asted 
in the kitchen can be chopped up with a vegetable cutter in 
pieces small enough for the fowls to swallow, and they form 
an excellent substitute for the grasses of summer. Heads of 
cabbage may be hung up in the scratching shed so the fowls 
will be required to jump for them. This also provides exercise. 
Care should be taken, tho, not to feed too much cabbage, as it 
will give the eggs a peculiar flavor. If turnips are plentiful 
they also may be fed in this manner. In the last few years 
alfalfa has been placed upon the market in the form of a dry 
bulky meal for poultry. A quantity of the meal is scalded with 
hot water the night before it is intended for use. It turns as 
green as grass as soon as it is scalded, but it should be left 
covered tightly for several hours. It should then be mixed with 
mash food to form about one-fourth of the quantity of the bulk. 
Pure, clean clover hay is equally good chopped up and 
scalded and fed in this manner or a bale of clover hay may be 
left in some out of tho way place for the fowls when it will soon 
be found the leaves will all be picked from the stems. Then the 
bale may be torn apart. It will surprise some to think of fowls 
eating hay, but they will actually eat all the leaves of the clo- 
ver stems, so much do they relish bulky food. The cow beet or 
mangel wurzel form a very cheap and efficient green food for 
poultry, but they can scarcely ever be purchased on the market. 
If you want a supply of green food for your fowls for next 
year sow a small quantity of the seed along in July or engage 
some farmer to grow some for you. If you live in the suburbs 
possibly thei'e is a hothouse near which grows lettuce during 
the winter. The waste leaves may be obtained at small cost. 
Sprouted oats or wheat makes another good form of green food 
foi- winter use. The grain is soaked in lukewarm water over 
night and then placed in a shallow box or pan in a two-inch layer 
and the box kept in a moderately warm temperature for ten 
days or two weeks or until the young plants reach a height of 
two or three inches. 



The Louse Question a Live Issue in the Dead of 
Winter. 

Those who should really read this article, no doubt will 
feel on reading the headlines that it is another of those theories 
of inexperienced poultry writers and leave it at that. 

All the articles on the lice problem that I have found raise 
a loud warning about the pest during the spring and summer 
and fall and seem to take it for granted that with cold weather 
lice will be a minus factor. But such is not the case. I had 
poultry for several years before I became alive to the impor- 
tance of the lice problem in the dead of the winter and its rela- 
tion to the general health and efficiency of the flock. It is then 



106 BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



the large body lice get in their deadly work. The awkward and 
ungainly young cockerels and old cocks are the first to fall an 
easy pi'ey to these big body lice. Old hens and the light laying 
class of young pullets are last to contract body lice because of 
their neat and thrifty habits about their personal cleanliness. 

The poulterer must have as keen and educated an eye and 
as quick to note symptoms and what they indicate as the skilled 
physician. 

Dfd you ever see head lice ? This is an insult to the ave- 
rage poultryman for he knows head lice from feathers. Many 
farmers and back-lotters do not know a head louse when they 
see it. You have probably seen this class of people. Let me 
ask another (jucstion. Did you ever see a young cockerel or 
cock that had all the line particles of feathers of his entire body 
eaten off by body lice? If you have not, you have not been a 
very careful observer. To the experienced eye it does not take 
very strong light to know when you have such a bird in hand. 
It is generally known that body lice do not penetrate the 
skin or suck the blood, that head lice are a species of tick and 
live as such with their heads burrowed in the flesh, that the 
little red mites also are equipped with skin penetrating mouths 
and live upon blood. But what do the body lice live upon you 
ask? They are scavengers, if you please, and live on the offals 
of the fowl. They depend upon moisture from the eyes and vent 
and for food upon the growing feathers and the constantly 
shedding epidenriis or skin. 

Fowls bury their heads under the wings when they sleep 
or rather just above it in the feathei-s. In the early fall and 
winter fowls and especially young fowls are susceptible to 
colds. Their nostrils run just as in humans. During the night 
this excreta is deposited on the feathers on either side just above 
the wing secondaries. This makes a sticky, filthy mass of feath- 
ers in a short time and for the time being a veritable paradise 
for those big body lice. If you have never seen these symptoms 
in your flock be a little more careful in your examination of 
your backward cockerels. 

I have made it a practice for several years to paint a circle 
of blue ointment, using a portion about the size of a pea on 
each fowl twice a year. This is about all that is necessary for 
the body lice as a general rule. The fowls will soon be entirely 
free of this pest if this treatment is followed for the fowls will 
keep lice from getting moisture from the eye by industi-iously 
sci'atching when one runs up his neck. The louse dies of thirst 
as a result, provided your fowls do not have a slight cold and 
the lice get their supply of moisture from the feathers above 
and back of the wings. 

Colds are responsible for the lice and the lice are responsible 
for colds. This is why youngsters contracting colds in the fall 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRMEN 107 



do not seem to yield to the best of treatment. It is because 
m a short time after getting a cold they become alive with lice, 
and lice so weaken their systems that no amount of cold and roup 
treatment will cure them. You are lucky if you do not have a 
few of this class in your flock from which you can gather practi- 
cal information at once upon the winter louse question. On these 
fowls you will find the feather in a different condition than on 
a healthy fowl and it is because the feathers have been constant- 
ly preyed upon since early in the fall by lice and the tender 
particles of feather eaten as they protrude from the skin just 
as your hens eat the tender blades of grass in the spring as 
they first come thru the ground. The skin will be rough and 
scaly, too, on a fowl in this condition. Yet I find many cannot 
detect these symptoms in their fowls as a result birds "are said 
to go light, have rheumatism, cholera and numerous other dis- 
eases. 

This fall I went to inspect a flock of a friend and customer 
while on a trip, and this friend complained of a cock two years 
old that I had sold him as a cockerel. Stated he was sick and 
stiff as if he had rheumatism. Did not know what was the 
matter with him. This party, naturally a very careful and 
clean man about his premises had utterly failed to note the lice 
on his cock. He was deeply chagrined over the affair and wrote 
me in a couple of weeks the bird was nearly back in normal con- 
dition. I was in a show a few days ago and in looking over a 
nice string of birds of a certain experienced breeder, heard 
him remark that a certain cock, pointing him out, was not mak- 
ing the show bird he expected and seemed to be off condition 
continually. I examined the bird and found him a mass of lice 
and his feathers eaten as above described until there was no 
nice downy fluff beneath any more at all in any portion of 
his body. 

A fitting climax to the louse question in winter came a 
few days ago when a $25.00 Rhode Island cock was returned 
to a friend fx'om a customer in the west. Tho cock had been 
shipped early in September in fine condition and well worth 
the money. The customer was more than pleased as evidenced 
by lettei's which my friend proudly displayed. Later the cus- 
tomer wrote that the cock was off his feet and seemed to be 
stiff and unable to stand and in bad condition. My friend 
asked me what to suggest. I stated I was afraid it was rheu- 
matism caused by overfeeding of a high priced bird and subse- 
quent liver trouble which brought on the iheuuiatism, I sug- 
gested Dr. King's New Life Pills which I have found better for 
slight attacks of this kind than anything else. Nothing seemed 
to help the bird so the customer wrote and he finally became so 
disgusted that he wrote my friend that he could have the bird 
back by paying the express and added, "Keen the $25.00. I am 
stung." I was so familiar with the whole transaction and the 



108 BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



bird in particular that I urged my friend to take the customer 
up on his proposition to ferret out what was wrong if the bird 
came back or to shut up the customer if he was attempting to 
defraud the seller by his constant kicking. 

The bird came back. He could not ".tand up in the coop. 
Not in a long time have I seen such a sight. My friend at first 
was so dumbfounded at the haggard condition of the fowl that 
he did not attempt to analyze the difficulty. lie called my at- 
tention to the bird being back, and in line with my recent ex- 
periences with others with lousy fowls, I suggested that he look 
for body lice. The next day I heard from him and he de- 
clared he could not have stretched his imagination enough to 
believe so many lice could be on one fowl. Louse powder re- 
moved the lice, and Liccne was applied about ihe vent. The 
cock ate all the corn from two fair sized ears of corn the next 
day. I warned my friend not to overfeed the gluttcn. He is 
on his feet and will make a winner yet at tnc late shows. Think 
of a poultryman with a big letter head buying a $25.00 bird and 
letting him slip thru his hands in three short months like that 
for the lack of ordinary attention. 

Use plenty of powder on backward birds that muss vp their 
feathers about their wings with the excreta from their nostrils 
and "use Licene on all your birds twice or three times a year 
as directed. I use Averneous Carbolineum on the roosts once 
a year or once in two years for mites. Put it on hot. One ap- 
plication will keep mites out of your houses three years but 
it is well to use it once a year. The old fashioned way of spray- 
ing with dips and disinfecting with sulphur fumes and what 
not is a waste of time. Licene ami Aveineous Carbolineum, ad- 
vertised in all journals are all anyone needs and you only have 
to use the one twice a year and the other once in two years to 
be absolutely free of lice and mites the year round. 



Building Exhibition and Shipping Coops. 

When I planned to make my first exhibit at a poultry show 
I was quite at a loss to know what kind of a coop I would need 
to show my birds in, how big they should be, what they should 
be made of, etc. It took quite a lot of searching before I could 
even find the dimensions of a standard coop. Today there are 
any number of firms who sell exhibition coops knocked down, 
but all finished except putting the nails and screws in them. A 
great many poultry fanciers like to build their own poultry 
houses and coops for hens and chicks, and likewise would have 
the spare time and much enjoy building their own exhibition 
coops. 

It does not take many tools to make an exhibition coop, 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



109 




P=^ 



but to make nice, neat looking coops that will show off the fine 
birds they are to contain well, pains must be taken in their con- 
struction and time taken 
for accuracy in dimen- 
sions. 

The first thing to find 
out after you have de- 
cided to show at a certain 
show is whether they fur- 
nish exhibition coops or 
require the exhibitor to 
furnish them. If the ex- 
hibitor is required to fur- 
nish them figure out how 
many single specimens 
you intend to show as well 
as pens. From the ink 
sketch of coop and the 
sketch showing frame and 
floor construction the 
mode of constructing an 
exhibition coop can be 
easily seen. The wooden 
rods from which to make 
the front of the coop are 
ordered at a nearby planing mill, and should be a little less 
than a half inch thick. Or if preferred iron wire may be used 
and painted as the wooden rods are. 

The dimensions for a standard exhibition coop which will 
accommodate either single birds or pairs, is 24x24x.S() inches 
high and the pen size is the same in height and width, but 40 
inches long. 

You will note the little drop door at the bottom of the coop. 
The floor may be made to slide in as a drawer in this door to 
facilitate rapid cleaning, or the floor may be built to the 
coop and cleaned thru this little door with a miniature hoe 
being made by tacking a piece of galvanized iron to a broom 
handle. I have built several coops together making a string 
as long as ten feet, but I find five or six foot sections more sat- 
isfactory. The beauty in making coops of several in a section 
is that they can be made stronger, and they are not tossed 
about with as much ease by the strong arm expressman as 
the single pen size coops. The coops are thus insured better 
treatment while in transit as well as the birds. 

When shipping a string of birds in exhibition coops it is 
advisable to tack lath quite freely over the canvas part to 
make it as unhandy as possible for the drayman to shove a 
foot thru the side of the coop and release a fine bird or two. 



110 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



The top of the coop may be covered either with canvas or 
slats, but I prefer the slats as they admit more light and make 
the coop more substantial. The front of the coop should be 
covered with drop curtain of muslin securely fastened while the 
birds are in transit. Inquisitive loafers at the depots cannot tor- 
ment the birds, and if the weather is at all chilly or cold, as it 
generally is during the show season, the birds should be thus 
protected to keep them from being exposed to drafts and taking 
cold and roup. 

In building exhibition coops the thot should be constantly 
in mind to make them as light as possible, and yet have them 
strong and durable. Light, soft pine is the best for frame work 




and hard pine for the rods. If the coop seems weak after it is 
put together it may be strengthened by twisting wires across 
as is done in strengthening old chairs. 

When shipping securely fasten the drinking and other cups 
on the inside of the coops and tie down the doors. Never 
use anything but nice, clean rye or wheat straw; oats will do, 
in bedding down the coops, I never will forget my first ex- 
perience in this line. I had not been to a single good poul- 
try show before my fii-st attempt at exhibiting. I built my 
own coops, and they were the best in the show, as I learned 
when I got to attend the last day, and I had conditioned my 
own birds according to information i-eceived in the poultry 
journals, and my birds proved to be in better condition than 
any in the class, but the boys had one laugh on me in that 
I put shavings and sawdust in my coop for bedding instead of 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 111 



straw. The birds got a lot of the sawdust in their plumage in 
shipping, but that did not keep me from winning four out of a 
possible five firsts. The sawdust gave me away, tho, as an 
amateur exhibitor. 

Where coops are furnished for show by the association the 
birds should be shipped in shipping coops built like the illustra- 
tion. They, too, should be made as light as possible in order to 
keep dowTi express charges. I like to use as many lath in their 
construction as possible, and use good, stiff cardboard or cor- 
rugated paper from post toastios or other cereal shipping boxes 
to line the inside with. The cardboad is light and much better 
than gunny sacking or canvas. A shipping coop should be pro- 
vided every single bird for it is very unsafe to ship two or 
three together on account of possible crowding and suffocation. 
If you ship a pen in exhibition coop the cock and a hen or two 
should be shipped separately in shipping coops. 

The shipping coops, as well as exhibition coops, should be 
painted with some odd paint with a distinguishing mark on 
every side. You won't have to look for shipping tags on evei-y 
coop in a dark hall piled high with coops on the last evening of 
the show then to find your shipping coops. You can tell your? 
by the yellow or white initials at a glance ten feet away. The 
address in full should also be painted in small letters on the 
coop so if the tags are lost they will not go astray. I learned 
this valuable lesson one time at a Chicago show when I found 
the assistants had traded similar coops and likewise a cockerel 
with me to a party in another state. It took another week to 
get my bird and he his. 



Home Preservation of Eggs. 

The high prices of fresh e^gi^ in the late fall and winter 
make it desirable to have some simple, clean, cheap and reliable 
method of preserving the low priced spring and summer eggs 
for home consumption during the \\inter. Such a process would 
allow the poultryman farmei- to preserve cheap eggs for his 
own consumption while he could sell his fresh eggs in the winter 
time at high prices. It would allow the consumer to buy eggs 
when low in pi-ice and save buying many when the prices are 
high. On a commercial scale this is done by means of cold 
storage, but this method is not practicable in the homo. The 
price of cold storage eggs furthermore is determined by the 
price of fresh eggs and is, as a ride, much higher than the 
cost of storage. 

Ihe spoiling of eggs is due to the entrance of air, carrying 
germs of decomposition through the shell. Normally the shell 
has a surface coating of mucilaginous matter, which prevents 
the entrance of these harmful organisms into the egg for a con- 
siderable time. But if this coating is removed or softened by 



112 P.UILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 

washing or otherwise the keeping quality of the egg is much 
reduced. These facts explain why the common methods of pre- 
servation have not been entirely successful, and suggest that 
the methods employed should be based upon the idea of pro- 
tecting and rende)ing more effective the natural coating of the 
shell, so that air bearing germs of decomposition may be com- 
pletely excluded. 

The age of eggs may be approximately judged by taking 
advantage of the fact as they grow older their density de- 
creases through evaporation of moisture. A new laid ogg placed 
in a vessel of brine made of the proportion of one ounce of 
salt to one pint of water will at once sink to the bottom. An 
egg one day old ^\ill sink below the surface, but not to the bot- 
tom, while "one three days old will swim just immersed in the 
liquid. If more than three days old, the egg will float on the 
surface, the amount of shell exposed increasing with age; and 
if two weeks old, only a little of the shell will dip in the liquid. 

Many methods of preservation have been tried by many 
people and various experiment stations. Some of these have 
been packing the eggs in salt, oats, bran, peat dust, or wood 
ashes; covering them with parafine, vaseline, butter, lard or a 
solution of Salicylic acid and glycerine; varnishing \\ith col- 
lodion or shellac; stoiing on shelves and in racks in cool places; 
wrapping in paper; steiilized by being immersed in boiling 
water a few seconds; treated with a solution of permanganate 
of potash or alum and packing in rait biine, lime water and 
water glass solutions. 

Recently in Germany, twenty methods of preserving eggs 
were tested. Three methods which were found to be reliable 
were varnishing with vaseline, placing the eggs in lime water 
or water glass solutions. Of the three methods, pieservation 
in a solution of water glass is especially recommended by the 
North Dakota expcrinrent station, since varnishing the eggs 
uith vaseline is time consuming and treatment with lime water 
sometimes communicates to the egg a disagreeable odor and 
taste. In most packed eggs, after a little time, the yolk settles 
to one side, and the egg is then inferior in quality. In eggs 
preserved four or five months in water glass the yolk retained 
its normal position in the egg, and in taste they were not dis- 
tinguished from fresh, unpacked store eggs. 

Water glass (soluble silicate of .sodium) is a pale yellow, 
odorless, syrupy liquid. It may be obtained from most drug- 
gists at from 60 cents to 90 cents a gallon. Use only boiled 
water, to which after cooled, add 1 pint of water glass to fifteen 
parts of watei-. This should be sufficient to cover about fifteen 
dozen eggs in a four gallon crock. , -. , • i 

The lime water mixture. Shake three pounds of good quick 
lime in a small amount of water, then add the milklime thu.s 
formed to three gallons of water. Keep the mixture well stirred 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POLUTRYMEN 113 



for a day, then allow the excess lime to settle and use only the 
clear fluid. 

Only absolutely fresh, clear, unwashed, sound eggs with 
smooth, firm shells are suitable for preserving by these 
methods. Infertile eggs are preferred as they keep better than 
fertile eggs. Any dirty, stale, cracked, or thin shelled eggs 
should be discarded as they are liable to spoil and affect the 
good eggs around them. Any eggs that float in the liquid 
should be removed as floating indicates that the contents of 
the egg are shrunken, leaving a large air cell. Such eggs are 
usually stale, cracked or thin shelled. 

Any earthenware, glass or wooden jar, tub or barrel may be 
used as a container, depending upon the number of eggs to be 
preserved, metal containers must not be used as the solution 
will attack and corrode them. Wooden kegs or barrels should 
not have nails protruding through as even this small amount 
of metal will spoil the surrounding eggs. All vessels used must 
be absolutely clean and sweet because eggs are very susceptible 
to odors and taints of any nature. Scald the vessels with boiling 
water just before using, taking special care with those m^ade of 
wood. 

The eggs may be placed carefully in the vessels small 
ends down and the solution of water glass or lime water poured 
over them, or the vessel may be filled about one-half full with 
the liquid and the eggs carefully placed in as gathered. The 
latter method is preferable as it allows of packing the eggs just 
as soon as they are laid; also any eggs that would naturally 
float may be removed as they will not be held dowTi by the 
heavy eggs above them. The liquid rises as the eggs are put in, 
but at least two inches of the preservative should be above the 
eggs at all times. In the lime water method a very little of the 
sediment should be added to insure a constantly saturated solu- 
tion. A thin, white crust appearing on a lime water solution 
is due to the formation of calcium cai'bonate coming in contact 
with the air. This will do no hai'm if there is lime sediment 
present and should be left untouched as it will prevent further 
ci'ust formation. Vessels containing eggs in presei-\'atives should 
be kept in a cool, well ventilated place such as a good cellar and 
be covered to prevent evapoiation of the preservative. A new 
mixture should be prepared for each lot of eggs. 

One gallon of water glass as purchased will make enough 
preservative to preserve from 7-5 to 100 dozen eggs. The cost 
of preservation by the water glass method is less than 1 cent 
a dozen eggs, not taking into consideration the cost of the con- 
tainer, and by the lime w'ater method still cheaper. The w^ater 
glass mixture should be used, however, wiienever the water glass 
may be secured at less than $1 a gallon. 

Eggs preserved by either of these methods may be used 
to replace strictly fresh eggs, for nearly all cooking purposes. 



114 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



In boiling it may be necessary to pierce the shell at the large 
end to prevent ci'acking of the shell as preservative seals the 
pores of the shell and prevents the escape of the gases, which is 
possible in the strictly fresh egg. In frying and poaching, 
some trouble may be found because of the yolk breaking. In 
some instances the whites may not whip up as firmly as fresh 
eggs, but this quality as well as the fiimness of the yolk de- 
pends largely upon the condition of the egg when packed. Eggs 
which have firm yolks and whites when packed usually give no 
trouble when cooked. For those puiposcs where no objection is 
raised to a broken yolk, as in cakes, custards, and omelettes, the 
preserved egg is fully the equal of the strictly fresh egg and 
may be used at a great saving in cost. 

If a white deposit is found upon the eggs when removed 
from either the water glass or lime water solutions, it may be 
readily removed by holding the egg under a faucet or pouring 
water over them. 



Linebreeding. 
Several years ago the veteian poultry 
States, 1. k. Felch of Massachusetts, w 
bleeding by which a pair of fowls are 
ideal as we can find and by breeding as 



MAlc Line rem<i\e Line { \ 
^^. 'f^- — Oie Tve ration * ^ / i •»• 




€>: '=«. -c^ & €. 

Dr-„.vB>,HV.TormcjhUn At ( c r I K Pe. U h 



breeder of the United 
liked out a system of 
taken that are as near 
indicated by the chart 
shown herewith, three 
distinct strains are 
established. These 
strains are so remotely 
related that for all 
practical purposes they 
mav be called unre- 
lated. 

So many get line- 
breeding confused with 
inbreeding that it might 
be well to distinguish 
between the two. Line- 
bi-eeding is the syste- 
matic and careful 
breeding and mating of 
the offspring of an 
ideal pair of fowls after 
a manner indicated by 
the chart. Inbreeding 
is the breeding of the 
brothers and sisters one 
or more generations, 
promiscuously, or of 
sire on daughter and 
granddaughter, and 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 115 



om 



then possibly the crossing of the brother on sister again fiuux 
this mating. Inbreeding might be anything where the same 
blood IS intei-mingled generation after generation without going 
about it in the systematic way used in line breeding. 

In the chart lot 1 represents the original male and lot 2 the 
original female. Then by crossing 1 and 2 the result is group 
6, which possesses equal parts of the blood of the original pair 
Selecting the best pullet from 3 and mating to her sire 1, group 
4 IS produced, which contains three-fourths of the blood of 
the original sire and one-fourth of the blood of the original dam. 
In a like manner the best cockerel from 3 mated to his dam (2) 
produces group 5, which is made up of throe-fourths of the blood 
of the original dam and one-fourth of the original sire. 

Proceeding in a similar manner by mating the original 
parents to their offspring in the third generation we obtain 
group 6 and 7 offspring which contains either seven-eights of 
the blood of the original sire and one-eighth the blood of the 
original dam; or seven-eighths blood of the original dam and 
one-eighth the blood of the sire, as the case may be. 

Thus the blood of the original sire has been practically 
eliminated from the female line, and the blood of the original 
dam from the male line. If the original parents were still in 
breeding condition the blood of each could be intensified to 
fifteen-sixteenths in fifth generation. To obtain the original 
cross, however, it is only necessary to select parents from the 
corresponding groups on each side of the line. For instance, 
a cockerel from group 6 mated to pullets from group 7 will 
produce in the fifth generation group 9, which contains math- 
ematically one-half the blood of the original pair. Similar re- 
sults can be obtained by selecting parents from 4 and 5. 

The fifth and sixth generations, as shown in the chart, in- 
dicate only a few of the possible groups that may be obtained 
from various matings.. Thus if the original sire and dam cannot 
be used for breeding purposes beyond the fourth generation, 
their blood may be maintained in flfteen-sixteenths of its inten- 
sity by choosing parents from groups 4 and 6, or 5 and 7, to 
produce groups 8 and 10 respectfully. Then parents chosen 
from groups 8 and 10 will produce group 13, which is again 
mathematically one-half the blood of the original pair, and the 
original offspring again reproduces as far as the blood lines 
are concerned. 

By choosing parents from groups 7 and 10, twenty-seven 
thirty-seconds of the blood of the original dam, and five thirty- 
seconds of the original sire is produced in group 14. By choos- 
ing parents from 6 and 8 the male line contains in group 12, 
twenty-seven thirty seconds of the blood of the original sire 
and five thirty-seconds of the blood of the original dam. If it 
is deemed advisable to vary the proportions of the blood of 



116 BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



either side in any mating, groups 11 and 15 show that by select- 
ing parents from 8 and 9, or 10 and 9, twenty-one thirty- 
seconds of the blood of either line and eleven thirty-seconds of 
the blood of the other may be obtained. Many other propor- 
tions may be worked out by combining different groups. 



How, When and Where to Advertise. 

The whole structure of the thorobred poultry business Is 
built around advertising. If you have a good strain or variety 
of fowls it is your duty to let the world know about it. A sign 
painted on your poultry house or an ad placed in your local 
paper is not sufficient. Poultrymen would f]uickly starve to 
death if they depended upon this means of advertising. 

Nor is it wise to win some prizes at the shows and ex- 
pect to get a lot of free advertising because the poultry papers 
print the winnings. To expect to profit thus is to be of the 
consistency of a leach. 

The poultry business is a billion dollar world wide business 
and you ni-Jt-t get the vision and adverliso to the whole world 
for you can ^h'p stock or eggs most anywheie. 

V\here ohall I ad,verti:-.e ? The locat'on of the publication 
has little to do with it. The character and size of its subscrip- 
tion list a f;i'*<tt dea'. You generally ger just whai you j)ay for 
and the j uhli.-ners v ho charge more ^-eneraily nave larger 
circulations, not alwavs. The make-up, style and general busi- 
ness |-olicy o one paper mav •'■still n;oie coniidcncc in its read- 
ers for its advertisers than another and thus two papers with 
equal circulation, one will pull far better than another. A safe 
rule to follow is to fish where the other fellows find fishing 
good. It may take you a long time to appreciate this and you 
may waste money on advertising in papers just because no 
other breed of your variety advertises there. You may win — 
once in awhile. 

When shall I advertise? It is throwing money away to ad- 
vertise a month or two, but after the second or third month 
you should be able to tell whether you have the right kind of 
bait in your ads. The successful advertiser changes his copy 
every month in the year and advertises every month in the 
year. Follow this rule and write your ads like you were writh- 
ing a telegram — boil it down and re-write it a dozen times until 
you say just what you want to say. Then talk about the other 
fellow's needs and not your wants. 

A good ad carefully worded and placed in the right publica- 
tion is one of the best investments in the world. Advertising 
should be considered a privilege, not an evil necessity. The 
American poulterer can never repay the debt he owes to the 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 117 



progressive poultry publications in this country that have made 
the industry what it is. Read a few foreign poultry publications 
and you will appreciate what I mean. 

fl^ ^ -^f ,r^I^ ^^^^^ ,the poultry papers because they do not see 
fit to tell their readers about your fine birds or winnings when 
you do not advertise with them. If you show for the sport and 
have nothing to sell them you do not want publicity which will 
pester you with inquiries. If you have something to sell, then 
be honest and advertise and quit knocking the papers for not 
giving you a few dollar's worth of space gratis. 

Brown Leghorn breeders as a class have been poor adver- 
tisers. Get in the game, the fishing is fine! The demand far 
exceeds the supply but the demand is in yonder states and 
provinces and you must advertise accordingly. A good rule 
to follow: Spend a half of what your feed costs each month 
in advertising. That rule will work wonders. 



Keeping Fowls in Summer on City or Town Lot. 

Fowls stand the close confinement of their houses and runs 
well in the winter time, but after a few weeks confinement in 
their small run in the spring time they cease to be active and 
alert. Their combs do not present the bright red appearance 
and they seem to pine and lose flesh, as a bird in a cage not 
accustomed to confinement. 

There is more in keeping fowls in an intelligent manner 
and getting the highest efficiency out of them than merely 
ke-^pmg them in sanitary coops and runs and feeding them twice 
or three times a day. It is just as easy to keep the fowls the 
right way as it is the wrong way, no matter how few fowls 
you keep or how small the runs. The great mistake the towtn 
dweller with a small back lot makes is that he tries to keep 
too many on the lot he has. Numbers for the given space 
being equal, the experienced poultry raiser will make more off 
of his hens than the farmer who pays little attention to his 
fowls. It is because he gives them what they need and care and 
attention. 

Fowls kept on the average city or town lot are an expense 
to the owner rather than making him anything when they are 
kept as the majority of fowls are kept in "town. To make "them 
pay for their feed and a little more they must be cared' for 
properly. They must be kept in a sunny and dry house facing 
the south, with several windows of muslin or canvas to admit 
the fresh air. Their coops and runs must be kept clean and 
sweet. Dust must be provided for them to help free themselves 
of lice and mites. Hoppers should be provided in which are 
kept a constant supply of grit, charcoal, and oyster shells. An- 



118 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



other hopper should be supplied with a good dry mash ration 
composed of two parts ground corn, one part bran, one part 
middlings, one part glutten feed, and one part beef scraps. 
With sprouting oats fed twice a week and sci'atch feed fed in 
six-inch litter of sti'aw once oi' twice a day, the fowls will lay 
well during the winter and most of the summer. But to furnish 
them some diversion for their many days of confinement dur- 
ing the long summer when it is the hardest on them they 
should be provided with a run of fresh growing green food that 
will, as it were, take them back to the simple life. 

It is an easy matter to do this if the sun shines on your 
back yard and you should not be guilty of keeping fowls where 
the sun will not shine. Poor, indeed, is the soil that will not 
grow an abundant crop of green foiage food after being used 




as a poultry run for some time. It is rich in the elements that 
make an abundance of plant life. It is a good policy to thin 
the flock in the early summer befoi*e they go to molting, as 
then they will not lay for several weeks anj-^vay. After thin- 
ning out the flock somewhat you can easily divide the runs or 
parks into two parts. The accompanying photographs show 
how a small i-un fifteen by thirty feet was divided by stretching 
a piece of wire netting directly across, connecting two posts on 
either side. The run was then spaded up carefully and raked 
and sprinkled and reraked until the soil was pulverized thor- 
oughly so the seed would have a good opportunity to grow. 
Much" depends upon getting the soil in fine condition before 
planting. A mixture of lettuce, rape and millet seed was sown 
in this small patch, only a very small portion being rape and 
the majority being millet, as the rape takes up so much room 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



119 




and the millet less. Rape seed is black, while millet seed is 
yellow, so I would suggest the proportion of one to ten. In 
three weeks' time the patch had made the growth sho\\Ti in the 
photograph and the fowls were permitted to have a half hour 
each evening in it, care being taken that they did not trample 
it down, and when they were satisfied they were hustled back 
into the bare run. 

In six weeks' time the patch had made the growth sho\\Ti 
in the second picture, which looks more like a jungle picture 




120 BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



than a plot in a back yaid. When it got this high the fowls 
could not trample it down and they were given their freedom 
so they would not disturb the root growth. Their enjoyment of 
this small run continued all summer until thrashing time came 
for the millet, when the fowls did this also, and how they did 
enjoy it. 

In the first photo a grape vine may be seen growing in the 
wire netting which furnished some much needed shade. Also 
a few sun floweis are growing with the millet and rape to make 
more shade. They were planted earlier in the season in the 
runs and old buckets with the bottoms out placed over them to 
protect them from the fowls. 

The question might be asked why I used the combination 
suggested? It is because millet makes the quickest and best 
growth and stands the late planting bettei- than anything I know 
of except rape, and rape is such a succulent nutritious green food 
while lettuce grows quick and is tender and will be eaten first, 
giving the other plants a better chance when the fowls are first 
turned in. 

The thiid photo shows another run and the piovision made 
for shade on the south side with a low of sunflowers and a 
patch of sweet corn. Both poultry runs are situated on the same 
back lot, which is foity-ninc loot wide and there is a plot of 
grass and flowers nineteen feet wide between the two i)arks 
so that there is no suggestion of the filthy and obnoxious poultry 
runs so often seen in the city or town. These parks remain 
sweet and fresh year after year and the fowls thrive under such 
intelligent treatment. 



Poultry Appliances and Methods. 
By KOY II. W.AIT?:. 

Economy Nests. 

In October, 1017, the "Economy Nests," showTi in figs. 1, 2, 
3, and 4, were designed and six of our pens were equipped with 
them. These nests have been in use continuously since that time 
and have proven satisfactory in every way. They are equally 
serviceable for small or large breeds. 

The principal advantage of these nests over most other de- 
signs is the economy of labor recjuired to clean and keep them 
in a sanitary condition. In addition their constiniction requires 
a minimum of labor and materials, therefore they are also eco- 
nomical in this regard. 

The wall of the poultry house serves as the back of the 
nest and as the whole section is hinged at the top, it can be 
swung out and propped up for cleaning, as shown in fig. 4, or 
the pin may be withdrawn from the hinges and the nests taken 
outside, if a thorough overhauling is thought necessary. The 
alighting boards are hinged to the front and may be raised 




p=a__[ 



—i 



EE: 



J'-/' 



P/enei. 



-2 "4'- 



-5 7/ 



/ A\ 



-J' //"- 



f Pn 



i'/o"- 



2. f^/eces 



2 Pittei>. 



-3' S 



Z Pieceb. 



4^ 



IS" 



/'/"- 




2. F/ecei J 



/ Pieces 



u2.pf\^ 



fccnorny 



mi ^y'l Ci/> i^A lilS 



Fig. 2. 



122 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



up and fastened to close 
the nests, as shown in fig. 
3, or they may be left 
down so that the hens can 
enter (fig. 1). It is so 
often convenient to close 
nests at night, especially 
during moulting time, to 
keop the hens from roost- 
ing in them. Hens that 
do not moult till late fall, 
when the weather is cool, 
sometimes make consider- 
able trouble for the poul- 
trykeepcr by persistently 
roosting in the nests. Pul- 
lets not accustomed to 
new quarters, often give 
trouble in this same man- 
ner. Piu. I Economy Nest section oinn. ready for 

Each nest will serve fowls to enter. 

from five to ten hens, 

therefore a section of six will accommodate a flock of from 
thirty to sixty birds. For smaller flocks sections of two or 
four nests each can be made. For larger flocks additional sec- 
tions may be made if not thought too clumsy to handle. 

The material required to construct a six-nest section is as 
follows: 





Fig. 3~ -Economy Nest section closed. 



Fig. 4 — Economy Nest ready to clean. 
Fig. 12 — Simple Brood coop. 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



123 




T hinges 
finishing 



Fig 



5 — Broody Coop made of electric 
lawn fencing. 



veld 



Fig. 6- 
Openin 
Catch. 



stay 



2 boards— 12 ft.xYs in.x 
12 in. 

2 board— 12 ft.x% in.x 

in. 

1 board — 10 ft.x% in. x 

in. 

1 pair loose butt hinges 
with screws. 

2 pair strap 
with screws. 

1 lb. No. 8 
nails. 

12 fence staples. 

6 ft. number 9 wire. 
"Broody Coop." 

A slatted bottom 
"broody coop" has come 
to be recognized as almost 
an essential fixture for the 
poultry house. It is use- 
ful as a place where 
broody hens can be con- 
fined when it is desired to 
break them of setting and 
often comes in handy as a 
place for keeping surplus 
males during the breeding 
season or as a place in 
which to confine fowls for 
other purposes. 

The broody coop shown 
in fig. 5 can be very easily 
a n d economically c o n- 
structed. The sides and 
■ nd are built of two-foot 
' loctric weld lawn fenc- 
ing. A hole is cut into 
the front (1 fig. 6) made 
of the same fencing ma- 
terial is fastened in place 
by bending two of the line 
wires (fig. 6) of the door 
around the stay wire at 
the edge of the opening. 
The door swings on the 
wire, the two bent ^\^res acting as hinges. The catch is 







-Close up view of broody coop. (1) 

:. (2) Door. (3) Line wires. (4) 

(5) Line wire where catch hooks. 



made by bending one of the line wires as shown in 4, fig. 6, and 
hooks over the line wire at 5, fig. 6. 



124 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



1 


-■--.--,- -l----.--i--r-T -T-T-J-r- T -,- -TJ 




>i 


' 



































, .'ill; 



j Side Vi 



e w 



6'M' 



^ // 



V^i 



;;; ^nd 



View ^ 



ill 



A 



Outdoor Ma^h Feeder 

for (j ro w iti n C /n C k S 



mJ 1,.'lf,f Jr../J/S 



FiK. 7. 



-■K- 



i— .^. 






I Piece 





\ 










s. 


> 




*» 


















1 Piece 








» 


2'"':^%ui 


I 


N 




t^ 

H 




< 


H 




V 














M 





I'^^Kr 






Oyster \)hell Hipper 



A' J <,./ f,,, U.. '»<» 



Fig. 8. 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



125 




10--Throo compart- 
ment hopi C1-. 



Out-door Feeder 

Th e out-door feeder 
shown in fig. 7, has been 
used at this station during 
three seasons. This feed- 
er differs from the usual 
slatted type in that the 
slats are replaced with 
short pieces of wire, mak- 
ing a neater construction, 
allowing more chickens to 
eat at the same time and 
letting more light enter so 
that the chickens can see 
the feed. The feeder 
shown in the drawing will 
sei've from thirty to forty 
growing pullets up to the 
time they go into winter 
quarters. The feeder can, 
however, be made in shorter lengths if the flocks are small. 

There is practically no wasting of feed from feeders of 
this type, which is probably due to the fact that the light con- 
ditions make it unnecessary for the chickens to withdraw the 
head while eating 

Shell and Grit Hopper. 

The shell hopper shown in figs. 8 and 9 is of very simple 
construction and can be made by anyone who is at all handy 
with tools for all the pieces that go to make up this hopper are 
sawed with straight cuts. A decided advantage of this style 
over the ordinary shell hoppers is the greater capacity. Fig. 10 
illustrates how the hopper can be constructed with three com- 
partments. 

Treatment for Scaly Legs. 
Scaly legs are, as a 
rule, very troublesome, 
especially in flocks in 
which the brooding has 
been done with hens. The 
disease is not immediate- 
ly dangerous, but fowls 
with scaly logs never do 
as well as those without. 
When it comes time to 
ship them to mai'ket fowls 
will not command as high 
a price per pound as clean 
legged specimens. 




126 



BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 



Kerosene oil has been found to be a cure for scaly legs but 
the method of applying it is apt to be somewhat tedious. A con- 
venient method to cure scaly legs is to dip the legs in a tin can 
filled with kerosene oil. The can is filled and fastened to the wall 
of the house or other convenient place by driving a small nail 
through the end that is partly cut when the can is opened. Nail- 
ing prevents the can from being knocked over by the struggles 
of the bird and allows one person to do the work unassisted. It 
should be kept in the can as long as the disease is prevalent, 
so as to be convenient whenever there is an oppoi'tunity to dip 




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BUILDING PLANS FOR POULTRYMEN 127 



the legs of the affected fowls, for more than one application 
will be required to effect a cure, especially if the disease is 
severe. 

Simple Brood Coop. 

This brood coop shown in figs. 11 and 12 is a very simple 
one to construct and makes an efficient "headquarters" for a 
hen and her brood of chicks. This cOop can be used with or with- 
out a floor. When rats are troublesome or heavy rains preva- 
lent tha floor is a desirable feature. The door with its quarter- 
inch mesh wire cloth, covering fits closely to make the coop 
rat proof at night. During the day the door may be left slight- 
ly open, just enough to allow the chicks to run out and still 
confine the hen, or it can be opened wide when it is desired to 
let the hen have free range. 

The material required to build one of these coops is as 
follows : 

2 pieces 14 ft.xYs in. x 12 in. 

2 pieces 12 ft. x % in. x 2 in. 

1 piece roofing 30 in. x 4 feet. 

1 piece wire cloth 2 ft. x 18 in. 



Table of Contents 

starting Right in the Poultry Business 3 

Raising Poultry as a Side Line 5 

How to Malve a Piano Box House 8 

Some Pitfalls in the Way of Beginners 10 

Essential Requirements of a Poultry House 14 

The Right Soil for Poultry Yards 16 

Why Some Succeed and Others Fail 18 

A Model Poultry House at Reasonable Cost 20 

A Poultry House That is Different 24 

A Practical Small House for Fowls 27 

Back Yard Poultry House 28 

"A" Shape Colony House 31 

Iowa Model of Half Monitor Roof Type House 33 

A Cheap Scratching Shed 36 

A California Poultry House 37 

Making the Poultry House Burglar Proof 39 

Automatic Release Door 48 

A Good Home Made Trapnest 49 

A Simjilc Homo Matle Trapnest 51 

The False Floor Trapnest 52 

Nesting Boxes 52 

Trouglis for Fowls 53 

Cement Nests for Hens 53 

A Common Sense Window for Fresh Air Poultry Houses 55 

Drinking Vessels for Fowls 57 

The Sprouting Frame 59 

Breaking Up Broody Hens 69 

The Richmond p-eed Hopper 61 

Caring for Eggs for Incubation 62 

A Home Made Feed Hoiiper 63 

Successfully Shipping Eggs for Incubation 64 

Coops for Hens and Chicks 66 

The Setting of the Hen 68 

Drinking Fountain for Chicks r 70 

Moisture and Ventilation in Incubators 71 

Hatching Eggs in Incubators 73 

Caring for Incubator Chicks 75 

Toe Marking Chicks 78 

A Fireless Brooder 79 

Feeding for Quick Growth 81 

Home Made Feed Trough That Does Not Waste the Food 81 

Hatching Chicks and Their Color 86 

Missouii Colony Brooder House 83 

The Half-Way Coop 88 

The Sun and Rain Shed 89 

An Ideal Colony House for Chicks 90 

Planning the Si)ring Work -What to Do and When to Do It 91 

How to Fight Lice, Mites, etc 93 

Prepare Early for Green Feed and Shade 95 

Mineial Matter in tlie Food 97 

Cutting the Cost of Feed Stuffs 99 

pVir Winter Results and Poultry Success 100 

The Louse Question a Live Issue in the Dead of Winter 105 

How to Get Plenty of Eggs in Winter 103 

Building Exhibition and Shipping Coops 108 

Home Preservation of Eggs Ill 

Linebreeding 114 

How, When and Where to Advertise 116 

Keeping Fowls in Summer on City Lot 117 

Economy Nests 120 

Broody Coop 123 

Oul Door Feeder 125 

Shell and Grit Hopper 125 

Treatment for Scaly Legs 125 

Simple Brood Coop 127 



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